Random Esquire

1.  I heard Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer today.  I just gotta ask, when is there ever a warm, moist air mass moving over the North Pole on Christmas Eve?  Is fog really an issue at the North Pole?  So I decided to figure it out.  Turns out that because the air is so bitterly cold, it takes a really small amount of water in the air before it saturates, resulting in fog.  But not of water droplets – of ice crystals.  And this is not an infrequent thing.  So I guess the song does sort of make sense.

2.  And then I realized that I’d spent far too much time thinking about that.  Because, really, is the fog part where the song loses credibility for me?  Not the anthropomorphic reindeer?  Or Santa or the LED nose animal?   No.  See, I quickly pinpoint the fog and question that.

Sometimes, my brain is useless.

3.  You may have heard – I have a new service that I’m offering.  But you’ll have to visit QT‘s blog Friday morning to hear more about it.

Speaking of, check out that little Meg Ryan.

4.  I am the product of miscegenation.  This means that rarely a week will go by when someone does not ask me about my ethnicity.  However, I fully admit that it sometimes gets tiresome.  I would probably not mind except that most people seem to think that this is an acceptable way to inquire about your ethnicity:  “What are you?”

Sometimes, because I have decided to be playfully difficult, the conversation goes like this:

Person: “What are you?”

RE:  “American.”  Big smile.

Person: “No, I mean, like, where are you from?”

RE: “Oh!  Sorry – I’m from Chicago.”  Big smile.

Person: “Where were you born?”

RE: “Ohhh, Minnesota.”  Winning smile.

Person: “But what language do you speak?”

RE: “…English.”  Confused look.

Person: “I meant other than English.”

RE:  “Oh!  French.”

I don’t look French – even though I am 1/4 French.  I do appreciate the curiosity but sometimes, I want to make something up.  So I’ve decided to start saying, “I’m Caraway.  Perhaps you’ve heard of our seeds.”

5.  I realize that I have shifted this posture to Little Filthy. Once, while dining al fresco with the pooch under the table, a man walked by, did a double take at him and clearly wondered what breed he was.  The beast is pug-chihuahua.  The man said slowly, “What….is he?”

I said slowly, “He…is   a     dog…”

Amy Dickinson is an advice columnist for the Chicago Tribune.  She is often on NPR, too.  I used to think she was okay.  Until she informed a woman who had been raped that she was “a victim of [her] own awful judgment.”

*insert needle scratch across record*

You can read the article here.  Basically, a girl writes to Amy and relays a story about going to a frat party, getting intoxicated and being in a room alone with a boy.  She told him no, she did not want to have sex.  At some point, she realizes that he has gone against her wishes but she has a delayed reaction due to the alcohol.  They are then interrupted and must leave the room.  She asks Amy: “I guess my question is, if I wasn’t kicking and fighting him off, is it still rape?”

What is so massively offensive about Amy’s response is that she does not say, definitively, “YES.”

Instead, she says that the woman is a victim of her own bad judgment.  Then she warns against “getting drunk at a frat house” as it may result in “unwise or unwanted sexual contact.”   The problem here is that her logic reads like this: “You got drunk at a frat party.  Don’t you know that getting drunk like that often leads to unwanted sexual contact?”

Amy seems to have forgotten that there is no rape without a rapist.  She completely skipped over that little tidbit.

You don’t just get drunk and suddenly there’s some unwanted sexual contact.  There’s another party involved who is doing the unwanted sexual contact. Perhaps Amy meant to say:   if you get drunk at a frat house, your chances of unwanted sexual contact increases because rapists are more likely to target you.  But she just leaves it at “drunk at frat house = unwanted sexual contact.”  That’s unacceptable because while it may be a woman’s choice to get drunk at a frat house, that doesn’t mean she is consenting to unwanted sexual contact.

You know why rape happens, Amy?  Because there are rapists.  Not because someone got drunk.

I won’t be purchasing another Tribune or contributing to NPR while this woman still works for them or is associated with them.

Disgusted in Chicago,

RandomEsq.

p.s.  Please pass this on to your readers and encourage their voice be heard on the Tribune’s website.  I have left my comments there, as well.

1.  Dear Tiger Woods,

We know something’s up.

Shady.

Signed,

People who don’t really care beyond that point.

2.  Dear Couple who crashed the White House State Dinner,

WTH is wrong with you attention whores?

Dear Secret Service,

WTF.

Dear V.P.

Quit letting strange women put their hand on your chest and get a picture snapped.

Shady.

Signed,

Taxpayer.

3.  Dear Italian Public Prosecutor Guliano Mignini,

Are you the same public prosecutor that tapped the cell phone of Crime Novelist Doug Preston?  And bugged his partner’s car?  And dragged Preston down to Perugia to interrogate him and accused him of being an accessory to murder – all because he and his partner asked some questions about the serial killer in Florence who was never caught?   Right – you’re the one on trial for abuse of office and conflict of interest, correct?

You’re the same guy prosecuting Amanda Knox, right?

Just checking.

Shady.

Signed,

We’ve got our eye on you.

1.  I don’t understand when people text or IM: “What?”  It’s in print.  Just re-read it.  Just as stupid is when someone writes “um”.

2.  Whoopi Goldberg needs to read the Grand Jury testimony of Polanski’s victim.  If that’s not rape….oh wait, It Totally Is.

3.  I have a cold.  My nose will just suddenly run.  Just,…out of the blue.  and like before, when it does, it feels like my face wet its pants.

4.  I’m sorry I am so slow in responding to comments.  I love reading them.  I will be better.

5.  On my walk home from work, I cross a street on to which many cars are trying to make a left turn.  Those cars get a left turn arrow which then disappears – meaning that they no longer have the right of way and must wait for pedestrians to cross the street on to which they are turning.  Got the scene?  Want story? here I go.

So!  I waited at the corner while the cars turned left and then the arrow disappeared and I got a walk signal.  I stepped out into the intersection and a car came to a screeching halt about 4 feet from me.  A woman in her car was turning left and did not look to see if people were crossing the street.

I was momentarily stunned and I stopped for a moment, taking it in.  At this point, she yelled and drove forward another foot.

And that…is when I got angry.

I held my hand out toward the car and said, “COOL IT” – because crossing the street immediately by me was a man and woman with their baby in a stroller.  The driver crept closer to all three of us who were staring at her.  She came within no more than two feet of the three of them.

And that…is when the father got angry.

The man put his hands on the roof of her car, standing in front of it as if he was going to push it backwards and he waited while his wife crossed the street, yelling at her while she yelled back.

What did I do?  I stood next to him and pointed my camera phone at her.

You know what?  It freaked her the fuck out.

Which, it turns out, wasn’t really necessary.

Because I didn’t have time to actually get a picture before we both got out of her way and she burned rubber down the street.

But this is known as The Camera Defense.  Boss used to tease me about this but I am a firm believer that most people will act like complete assholes if they think it is a relatively private affair.  But if you point your camera phone at them, they usually get their shit together pretty quickly.  Once, on our way to the lake with Little Filthy, I honked at a guy who was straying out of his lane into mine.   At the next light, we were next to each other – me on the right side of him.  He started to yell at me so I picked up my camera phone and pointed it at him and his wife instantly turned and told him to STFU and stop it.

Point of the story?

PAPA BEAR FTW!

The Camera Defense FTW!

I am, for the most part, in a perpetual good mood.  But there are days in which I get completely fed up with things, when I want yell, and when I need to purge the system.  Today is that day.   Let’s begin by blowing off steam.  As I sometimes hate the sound of even my own complaining, the rest is behind a the cut.

(more…)

No,

I do not want to read your pamphlets about Jews for Jesus

and

No,

I do not have a moment to talk about the environment.

Today is going to be one of those days.

1.  Some people are such meddlers.  It’s still gossip, folks, even if it is true.

2.  Do you hold your phone to your right or left ear?  Does it matter if you are right or left handed?  I’m right handed and hold the phone to my left ear with my left hand.

3.  I may be on a kick of expressing myself purely with Peanuts captions.

I joined Facebook last year.  Then I did nothing with it for 6 months.  Who cares?  Finally, I started to use it.  Six months from then and this is what I have to say:

Facebook is stupid.

It takes all the social grace out of pretending to be someone’s friend.  What the hell, people.  I like to politely ignore people.  Not flat out tell them no or act like I didn’t hear them when they point blank ask me to be their friend.

It just seems like adding all these friends in Facebook is like…unlubricated, bad sex.

It’s just mechanical and doesn’t anything and you only do it to up your numbers and not because it means a damn thing.

Here are some things I’ve noticed about Facebook:

1)  Facebook enables you to skip your high school reunion. Because, let’s face it,…we all just want to see what people look like.  So if you’re from my high school and you add me as a friend (because I won’t bother adding you because chances are I don’t even remember your name), then I’m going to add you back with a filter in which you will learn nothing about my life, I will see if you’ve gone fat or bald and then I will unfriend.

Oh yes.  I will unfriend.

2)  Facebook is the Passive Aggressive’s wet dream.

No one in their right mind would step into a room of their friends and say, “Some people haven’t learned how to say thank you for dinner.”  Like, what the hell?   Just tell the person you’re mad at and don’t post some lame ass status.  Sheesh.

3)  Facebook enables you to entangle your life and friends with someone you’re dating without ever buying furniture or a pet together. That shit used to be sacred.

4)  You can tag pictures of just about anything with the names of your friends!  Ha ha!  And then their friends may see it and wonder wtf!  For instance, how about these pictures to the left that I tagged at QTMama.  Except, of course, these aren’t pictures of QTMama.  They are just pictures of a perfectly innocent woman simply trying to get an even tan.

5)  Sometimes, sometimes….Facebook is awesome. I reconnected with someone I’d wondered about for years and could not be happier to now have them as a true friend.

I’m fired up.  What should I rant about next?

Today, on my walk home from work, I saw a pedestrian kick the side of a car that had run the light late, crossing the intersection after the light had turned red and the pedestrians had begun to cross.  The driver burst out of the car and a screaming fit ensued.  I rolled my eyes.

Losing your temper is just one form of letting your emotional reaction to a situation dictate your behavior.  I have a real problem with this.  I am not a stoic.  I have strong reactions and feelings to situations but I do my best not to let that emotion become the fuel to inappropriate behavior.  As I get older, I am realizing that I have less and less patience for this behavior.

I have little to no patience for someone who behaves in disrespectful, inappropriate ways because his or her feelings are so strong at that moment, they just can’t seem to control themselves.  It makes me think of an anguished teenager and I am sometimes surprised to see it so prevalent in adults.  And, like a teenager, I think it stems from a form of self-centeredness.  The belief that there is only one way to view something and that another person’s view or feelings simply do not matter as much as their own.

As I watched the screaming fit in the street, I could understand why the pedestrian was upset.  Sometimes, I find myself so eager to get home that dodging tourists and slow movers annoys me a bit.  And certainly, a car in the middle of the intersection is a slow down as well as a possible danger.  But there was a bus in front of the driver and it is very possible the driver followed so closely that he did not see the light change and found himself unintentionally in the intersection and forced to move forward to avoid cross traffic.  And, at that time, to have someone kick your car?  I’d be ticked off, too.  But the pedestrian only saw one thing.  The injury to himself.  And he felt so offended, he felt justified in kicking this person’s car.

This is nuts, no? This loss of temper?   And losing one’s temper is easily identifiable because it is usually coupled with yelling or violence.  But I think it is just one form of a larger issue – the belief that one’s feelings (be they anger, grief, love, etc.) justify that their emotional needs be met at the expense or neglect of another’s.

Sometimes a feeling is just a feeling and not necessarily the way things are.

Tell me about your experience with this?

The media is rubbish.

I read MSNBC and this headline/byline stood out to me:  “$60,000 in debt, and nothing to show for it: Mary Uhazi is drowning in a sea of debt that she built up slowly over more than two decades of easy credit. But now she’s worried she won’t be able to pay it all off.”

Does anyone read that and boggle a bit?  First of all, I have to laugh.  This woman used credit for 20 years and accumulated $60,000.  Okay, that is mind boggling but part of me accepts that this, while an extreme case, does happen and many people do find themselves swimming in credit card debt.  The part that made me laugh was this:  But now she’s worried she won’t be able to pay it all off.

Is it just me or does anyone else think she should have hit that point a long, long time ago?  The article goes on to say:  “Now she worries she won’t be able to pay it off because of the recession, which has led to a reduction in her salary and an increase in her credit card bills.”

Seriously?  The recession has caused her to question if she’ll be able to pay of $60,000 in credit card debt?!  I just have to laugh.  People, the recession is not a catch-all excuse for the failures (human though they may be) of personal responsibility in spending.  Even if her credit cards completely eliminated her interest rate and even if her state job’s income was not decreased due to furloughs…I’m thinking that Mary should have had some doubts long ago about her ability to pay off this mountain of debt.  In fact, it would have been helpful if she’d had those reasonable thoughts before she incurred the debt.

This also caught my eye:  “She’s thought about trying to get a second job in the evenings, but such jobs are hard to get these days, and she worries about taking a position away from someone else who has no other means of income.”

Am I reading this correctly?  She just said: “I thought about trying …but it sounds hard.  And, from the goodness of my heart, I don’t want to take the job away from someone else.”

And this:  “Financial goals she once dreamed of, like buying her own home, have been put off indefinitely.”

Owning a home isn’t some *impossible* dream.  You have to take steps to do it – and I suspect she never seriously looked into those steps because, at some point, she would have learned that having that much credit card debt was going to make her home owning dream that much more of a fantasy.  I think her home buying dreams were probably put off $40,000 ago.

This reminds me of my first entry on the media – where some spammer sent pictures of women having sex with animals and the news group spent all this time and money tracking down the spammer.  No, media, NO.  You go find the woman having sex with these animals because 1) you have her picture and 2) people have more serious questions about her than some dude hitting the send button.
BAH.