Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Purge


This small piece of internetz space is overgrown with weeds. So neglected has it been that I don't even check in to see if anyone has left a comment. Come to find out that there has been weed-like comments by some douche who goes by the inspiring name of Anonymous. I'm minutes away from deleting A's comments which concern promotion of needless services and are sown on the most barren of online soil.

The second order of business is to increase the font size. Not only does it give impression of more content, but keeps people from saying "Fuck it. I'm not going to strain my eyes to read this teeny-tiny font." The readers who arrive here by mistake or are weeding out their bookmarks and wondering what the hell "Harrumph, Harrumph" is / was all about and bailing out after seeing the dinky text cannot be blamed. Nothing written in small print is interesting. This would include such things as disclaimers, footnotes, government warnings, and expiration labels.

Since I decided to keep this blog active, I had to reconcile it with my social media involvement. Twitter sates 99% of my online communication needs. Facebook? Still haven't warmed up to it. Facebook is often like being forced to look at wedding pictures of the wedding that already ruined an otherwise exciting Saturday for me.

Harrumph, Harrumph is now called called Bonus Coverage. Should a snide remark on Twitter lead to a rant or a tedious account of an actual event that interrupts my mundane life, then you'll find it here.

Oh, I almost forgot. This post is titled The Purge. I have pared down the list of people I follow on Twitter. I used to be so thrilled that someone would follow little ol' me that I would follow them right back. Now jaded, and convinced that while I wasn't reading their tweets any more than they were reading mine, I had to pull the plug on these low voltage excuses for human interaction. I mean, really. I'm saturation bombing Twitter with profanity and a mutual follower is sending out tweets that read like auditions for sappy greeting cards.

Among the malfeasance or indiscretion that led to being scratched from my list included the following:

Retweeting everything. I mean everything. Particularly annoying are retweets of headline news items. "Asteroid hits Cincinnati, Ties up Traffic." Thanks Mr. News Tipster(s).

Offering advice. I don't need a life coach. I certainly don't want to be like you. ...and by the way, if you want to make me financially successful, give me all your money, otherwise, fuck off.

Celebs without content. Make me laugh, say something provocative, or else get lost.

People who can't or won't write above a 5th grade level. I'm assuming they don't read very well either and my posts are too difficult for them to grasp. Although rife with typos as a result of posting at 5:00 a.m. or when my steady state is disturbed by the slightest chemical imbalance, my posts at least are aimed at reasonably intelligent followers.

Anyone who follows thousands of people. Sorry, Jack, one less won't make much difference.

So why am I following you? Because you're interesting. You're are a good writer. You will engage in a conversation. More so, I am drawn to the disenchanted, nihilistic, irreverent, insecure, befuddled, and otherwise mentally unbalanced.

Anyone who can scribe a riveting account of their latest meal, deserves to be read.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Offended? Bite Me.

Many of my my fellow progressives are prone to being easily outraged at innocuous statements. If a word comes out of some one's mouth even to vaguely suggest a slight, insult, tort, smear, or ill suggestion, then many swoon in shock.

The latest is the Nike ad where basketball star, Kobe Bryant, stated he doesn't "leave anything in the chamber." OMFG! So now we're saying that a sport that involves "shots" can't use a firearms metaphor? Kobe didn't say that when he plays he has the urge to kill every motherfucker on the opposing team. Did he?

In other PC news, someone (Biden) said Negro, and is catching hell for it. Yeah, I know, it sounds suspiciously like an N-bomb, especially when some inbred cracker drawls it out - and it is an antiquated term like octaroon or mulatto that was devised by and for anal racists who thought it necessary to construct a taxonomy of non whiteys. But, shit, it's not really an insult in most contexts and in fact may be the most accurate way of referring to a person of color. Not all people of color are black, nor are they African Americans. It's no big deal. Kind of like farting. Not socially acceptable, but an "excuse me" and a blast of fresh air is all that's needed to right the wrong.

I say this to make a point. Andrei Kirelinko (initials A.K.) of the Utah Jazz sports the number 47. No accident that it refers to the famous Russian automatic weapon. And like I said, pro sports are rife with terms that suggest violence. It so happens that Gilbert Arenas (Black guy) was just suspended drawing a weapon in the locker room. Bad idea by Gilbert. So now, Kobe, can't even talk about guns. AK-47 still goes about his busines.

I'm suggesting that the response to the Nike ad is more racist than Biden's gaffe. Had Steve Nash said "empty chamber" would there be the same outcry? Doubt it.

The danger of crying foul every time someone utters a misplaces word, is that there is no headroom for truly racist remarks or hate speech. I'm not suggesting that we call open season for offensive speech. Let's just show a little more tolerance and listen to what people say and not their choice of words.