Does anyone else kinda laugh to themselves when they walk past the makeup isles at the store? Well, I do. I call them ‘Aisles of Lies’, because that’s exactly what they are. I try to convince myself that not all women are idiots, and that they know that they will never look like the models in the ads. But then again, everyday theres someone famous for apparently being good-looking talking about some kind of creme that makes hideous she-donkeys into super models. I know people are generally malleable and stupid, but damn! I’d like to stand in the lie aisles and just inform the ugly women to give up on the ‘attractive’ thing. Even good looking women feel compelled to spend their money of on face paint in order to look like…i dunno…someone else? Seriously, grow up and get some self esteem.

Sadly, my employer will not pay me for that type of community service–which is near tragic for the population since we have to look at ugly people PLUS all the makeup they have caked on their unfortunate faces.

The ‘cosmetic’ industry is worth BILLIONS and is built on false promises, personal insecurities, and exaggerated claims— much like the Catholic Church. Part of me thinks that the suuUuUuuper uglies should just remove themselves from society, and the other part of me thinks that people shouldn’t give a shit WHAT I think and just do what they want.

Regardless, I don’t think that TV, movies, and magazines should do everything they can to make women feel uglier and fatter than they really are to make profits for their sponsors.

disclaimer: The only reason it bothers me is because I aint making any money off of it. Dammit.

disclaimer #2: Some broads actually NEED it.

^gat damn.

madonna?

bleh!

bleh!

^winner (loser?)

damn.

on second thought, hit the lie aisle ladies.

Please.

to be fair, here’s me without my morning routine:

Unless you prefer to only read the news from very particular sources, you should have heard about the ongoing fuckery that is only recently becoming national news in Jena, Louisiana. If you haven’t, I’m not going to bother retelling you the particulars when a google search can get you up to speed faster than anything else.

I initially wasn’t going to write much about this, but then I learned that finally CNN decided to put the story on their main page today. Some clicking around reveals that the story has been the ‘most viewed’ and the ‘most emailed.’ While I am proud that CNN decided to run the story, I stuck wondering what took them so long? And what about local news stations? Why aren’t congressmen getting involved? I think this situation is a prime example of a couple rather obvious (to me)facts:

1) Grassroots campaigns WORK.

You only need to take a look at one of the main website devoted to organizing support for these kids and the number of petitions/volunteers/and buzz that it has generated. This is NOT a story that the major publications want to run. Why? Because 71% of the country probably doesn’t want to be reminded that outside of major metropolitan areas, it’s still Mr. Jim Crow.

2) White people stay slow on the race uptake.

Usually when stories of inequality, injustice or just plain racial bullshit is printed they receive an avalanche of 71%’ers complaining about ‘race cards’ and ‘biases’ dripping with cynicism and complete disbelief. Obviously that isn’t all of em..just a lot. Anyways, if the story gets momentum, then the grey area White people start paying attention as though it’s something new. Not that I’m complaining, because any campaign always needs more people and I’m sure most who are supporting the cause are honestly down for the cause. Remember how long White people refused to believe that we were getting profiled/beat/killed by the police? Not that they ignore other people’s problems purposefully–but part of the privilege of being the right color in this country is that you aren’t obligated to care or pay attention. Must be nice.

3) A fucking noose IS a threat.

The CNN story sort of focuses on this particular jump off. They opened for debate the validity of the kids argument that the nooses that were hung from that infamous tree were perceived as a threat. The Jena school board, city committee, judge, and prosecutor characterize the nooses as a ‘harmless prank,’ which further leads me to believe that a lot White people haven’t changed not one-fuckin-iota. A question of this level of stupidity actually reminds of the rather pointless debate of ‘whether oral sex is adultery’ in regards to Clinton. People are so stupid. Of course oral sex is adultery and OF COURSE Black people are going to interpret nooses as a serious threat. Those White kids knew what they were doing, and they knew what those ropes meant. I cannot fathom the level of beatings that would result if I ever got a noose in my tree. I don’t know any other Black people who would disagree with that statement. Noose = Lynch= a lot of dead Black people. Sort of like an N-Bomb hurled your way = a beating. I always thought everyone knew that, but then again I have been known to give sheeple too much intellectual credit.

4) Homogeneous areas aren’t exactly the best places to expect fairness.

In Kansas City, like probably every other major city in the country, you can drive maybe 30 minutes (usually less) in any direction outside the city limits and the number of minorities becomes zero. Welcome to the majority of America. If the vast majority of the population, the school administration, school board, judicial system, prosecutor, jurors and mayor are White–what makes Black people think that they are going to get a fair deal? At what point in history has that EVER been the case? The school almost/kinda tried to do right and expel the junior Klansmen who hung the nooses, and the Jena School Committe promptly overruled them and suspended the kids for three days. Three days. Seriously, how far have we come?

We’re heading down to Jena on the 20th this month to voice our support and provide something more than lip service and well-wishes. It’s pretty damn easy to sit back and point out bullshit, but I guess I’d rather help do something about it. Check out the Color of Change site, and take a look at some of the updates. I plan on writing more about this once we get down there..

Sign the Petition if this shit makes you feel like I do. Actually holler at me if you’re in the KC Metro and may wanna roll with us on the 20th.

disclaimer: I failed to allocate the A-Team Van for the trip, but don’t let that dissuade you from coming.

hy·poc·ri·sy n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

2. An act or instance of such falseness.

1) Bob Allen

[Republican (obviously), Florida State Representative]

Allen, who is also the chairman of John McCains’ presidential (yeah, right) committee, was spotted by police in Titusville, Florida on July 11th ‘acting suspiciously’ at the men’s public toilet in a park. Police sent an undercover cop, and within minutes he had offered $20 to the cop to allow Allen to give him head action. Allen was arrested on charges of solicitation to COMMIT prostitution.

BEST PART: Here’s the explaination offered by Allen for trying to dome up a Federale: “This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” he said in a taped statement, and added that he was worried he would “become another statistic,” meaning that he was concerned he would be assaulted. Interesting…I’ve been in plenty of ’scary black people’ situations, but I never thought of blowing my way to safety.

Now it wasn’t his black dong fantasies that make him a hypocrite, nor the common ’scary Black man’ defense, nor the fact that he’s married with a daughter. Those just make him a gay bigoted adulterer. Take a look at some of the bills that he sponsored last year:

HB 1475 Lewd or Lascivious Exhibition
CS/CS/HB 41 Sexual Offenses
CS/HB 269 Lewdness and Indecent Exposure
HR 597 Sexual Solicitation and Abuse

2) David Vitter

[Republican Senator (of course), Louisiana]

This one’s a little older, but still funny to me. Vitter was one of the people who were found on the ‘DC Madam’ call list last month. The list supposedly has 15,000 names on it. Now we ALL know that most of the wrinkly old men in the capital have probably frequented their share of interns and escorts, but this one was special because of Vitters’ track record. Once his name was released as being on the list NUMEROUS times, Vitter said that he ‘had already asked God and his wife for forgiveness’ and ‘wanted to keep the discussion only between those two.’

BEST PART: In 2004, when Vitter was a congressman running for a seat in the Senate, Vitter campaigned with a promise of “protecting the sanctity of marriage.” He went on to become a co-author of the “Federal Marriage Act” that sought to prohibit courts from interpreting same-sex marriage laws, and said of marriage, “I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one.”

Vitter once compared same-sex marriage to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The first line of his biography reads, “David Vitter is dedicated to making life better for his young family and all Louisiana families.” But then, hypocrisy runs across Vitter’s “young family.” After extramarital affairs were exposed by Louisiana rep and Speaker of the House Bill Livingston were revealed, Vitter’s wife was asked how she would react if her husband had been caught in an affair, like Livingston and Bill Clinton. “I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary [Clinton],” she said. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

No lady, we don’t trust you. Nor should you trust your wayward husband, nor should voters trust anything he says about the ’sanctity of marriage.’ By the way, Vitter is also the Southern Regional Chair of Rudy “Thrice married, notorious adulterer, married second cousin” Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

Maybe I’m by myself of this one, but I thought we’d had enough of getting shot with our own weapons. The government calls it ‘blowback,’ which is when some military operation comes back to kick everyone directly in the balls (see: Afghanistan 1970 to right damn now). I call it bullshit. Like most people with half a brain know, we armed the Afghan fighters to ‘resist’ the Commies in the Soviet-Afghan War. Turns out, the Afghans hated our guts too, and now look where we are–stuck in that shithole getting shot by our own weapons. That, comrades, is major league blowback.

So imagine my suprise when I see the headline today that King George II and his lackies (lookin’ at you COONdelezza) have decided that the surefire way to hold Iran in check and stabilize the Middle East is to GIVE THEM $43 BILLION IN ARMS. What kind of fuckery is this? The ‘plan’ involves giving military assistance weapons to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

This, of course, is right after news that King George II wants to have a ‘Middle East Peace Conference,’ that at this point seems to amount to him crying that nobody will help him punk Iran. Does it really help us to have even sharper divisions in the Arab world? I can almost guarantee that there will be some type of confrontation with Iran before this bag of assholes leaves office next year. Maybe they are trying to start another war in an attempt to clean the egg off their faces for the current hugely disastrous failure. Iran, of course, released a statement in response to the plan:

“America has always considered one policy in this region and that is creating fear and concerns in the countries of the region and trying to harm the good relations between these countries,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in Tehran. “What the Persian Gulf region needs is security, stability, peace, prosperity and economic development,” he said.

What can I really expect though? These are the same lunatics that think giving teachers guns in their classrooms will stop school shootings. I guess if you follow that flawed logic than you somehow believe more weapons in the Gulf will help peace, and I wish the best for you and your dementia.

F