Showing posts with label bullies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullies. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Truth in headline writing


And the award for most truthful headline ever goes to The Inquisitr website in a story on how the freakish -- morally and otherwise -- CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't want fat people wearing his clothes . . . for basically the same reasons that "uncool" kids get bullied in junior high.

Sometimes, your average teenage bully ends up like Biff Tannen does in Back to the Future -- first, covered in manure and then, 30 years later, detailing George McFly's luxury vehicle.

Other times, though, he ends up as CEO of a company dedicated to fetishising everything that's wrong about America . . . and with the human soul. And then he eats your teen's brain -- which, quite frankly, this dude looks quite capable of doing.

With a nice Chianti and some fava beans on the side, no doubt.

But it's a free country, and if you or your kids want to be a whore for "that partially melted penis candle," as The Inquisitr so aptly described Abercrombie's Biff-in chief, Mike Jeffries, no one's going to lock you up before you debase yourself and the culture you inhabit. Just don't hand me any hypocritical crap about the glory of "diversity" or the evils of bullying while you're wearing hell's preferred casual wear.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Putting the 'NS' in NSFW


There's a new Ed Wood movie out . . . 34 years after the schlockmeister's demise -- Revenge of the White-Trash Half-Wits.

What appears to be an angry YouTube outburst by knuckle-draggers is really the unexpected piéce de résistance of the bad-movie universe. Unless, of course, it actually is the real deal.

Unfortunately, this probably is more likely than it being an Ed Wood anti-masterpiece or some sort of bizarro performance art. Disturbing performance art, but still. . . .

Here's the story thus far, which has gone viral on YouTube, Boing Boing, Tosh.0Gawker and the rest: Trashy-ass gal named Ashli Hall-Gay, apparently one of the biggest losers in life's genetic sweepstakes, likes to make rambling, profane and patently obscene smackdown videos with her hapless sidekick, Cindy, otherwise known as Mom. (And please note that hapless is a relative term here; this is because "haplesser" is not a real word.)

Ashli
These videos -- to which I won't link because the one above is by far the least offensive, and even it's Not Safe for Work in giant neon letters above the entrance of the trailer park -- are directed toward people who have somehow disrespected Dumb and Dumber on the Internet. They've apparently directed the one above at a couple of teen-agers -- young teen-agers -- who posted a YouTube video making fun of Ashli's videos.

THAT'S RIGHT. That profane, whack tirade above (and stay with it past the 2:51 mark to see how bizarre and inappropriate it can get) seemingly is directed at a couple of little girls.

What the f***?

No, who the f***?

Indeed.

(By the way . . . where were those girls' parents? Kids were watching enough of this garbage that they could pimp on it?)

Again, if this is some sort of warped performance art, it's disturbing. If it's real, it's disturbing and tragic. Tragic that, yes, there are people who dove headfirst into the shallow end of the gene pool.

Then there's the much larger tragedy -- using one's limited resources for evil and not for good. Giving oneself over to a toxic wave of anger and spite rolling across an endless sea of futility. Abandoning any pretense of human dignity and grace . . . but there's more still.

Cindy
The worst thing about Ashli Gay and her mom, Cindy Hall, is that they not only reject the notion that God has created each one of us in His image and bestowed upon us great dignity just because we are, but that they make us all question the premise. I look at these pathetic wretches in the wilds of Mount Vernon, Ill., and I think that maybe somebody lied.

That maybe I'm lying to myself when I say apparently ludicrous things -- Well, look at the damn video! -- like "God has created each one of us in His image and bestowed upon us great dignity just because we are." Really?

Look at 'em! What kind of a dumbass could believe that?

Exactly.

LOOKING at the wide array of humanity and asserting that each human is made in God's image and charged with the dignity of heaven is nothing if not a supreme act of faith. Sorry specimens like Ashli Gay and mom Cindy -- and it doesn't really matter whether they're real or a giant Internet ruse -- make that leap of faith a longer one than it was yesterday.

Sometimes, the World Wide Web is an amazing thing. Here, though, it's just a networking tool for the devil. Ain't that right, Cindy?


"Yeah!"

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Dear a-hole: You've just been owned


Here's one guy in La Crosse, Wis., who's going to think twice about writing a local TV morning-show anchor to tell her how fat she is.

Unfortunately, the jerk probably still won't hesitate to belittle others who don't have a television station at their disposal. Still, Jennifer Livingston of WKBT rocks.

And so does her outraged husband, Channel 8 evening news anchor Mike Thompson.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Madea for bus monitor!


You know who we need to be a junior-high bus monitor? Madea.

Surely, there must be some real-life approximations of Mabel "Madea" Simmons who can be tasked with straightening out America's feral youth. Give the newly minted monitors a school-bus version of a 007 license so the po-po will leave them the hell alone to do what needs to be done.

Can I get a witness, y'all?

Friday, June 22, 2012

The feral youth of Bus 784


Here's what I think of this Not Safe for Work video that's gone viral around the world, thanks to YouTube.

Here's what I think of little smart-ass, bullying seventh-grade s***s who pick on a 68-year-old grandma, who also happens to be the monitor on Bus 784 in Greece, N.Y.

Here's what I think. Here goes.

Do you remember those little bitty baseball bats common back in the day?

In my youth in the segregated South, they had a common name (common in every sense of the word) I shall not repeat, but I suspect sons and daughters of the Deep South know exactly what I'm talking about.


ANYWAY, this is why God invented those. (And your old man's thin leather belt.) I suspect just nearly connecting with one of the little darlings with a billy club-size Louisville Slugger would have been sufficient to put the fear -- if not of God -- of serious bodily harm into their profoundly undeveloped little brains.

Unfortunately, if the poor woman had done what most any adult would have done when I was a kid, she would have been arrested, and then she would have been sued into pauperism by the wolves who obviously have been "raising" these little monsters. That's because brats like that don't come from nowhere.

There is almost no reason sufficient to administer a serious ass-whipping to a child. Almost. But this is a damn good one.

This kind of behavior toward a senior citizen by a child used to be unthinkable, especially in the South of my youth, unless you were talking about a serious juvenile delinquent who'd be penitentiary bound soon enough. There were reasons for that.

Someone needs to exercise "the nuclear option" against the whole lot of these feral youth on that bus. Now.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Grace crashes high-school reunion

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


We live in a world that doesn't easily grasp the concept of divine grace.

Likewise, we live in a world that doesn't believe it is fallen -- as in, "No, I'm not OK, and you're not OK, either." We think we're nice people, and that's all that counts.

I'm here to tell you that I'm a pretty big rat bastard and that you may be, too. Or that, at some point, you likely were.

A bunch of teen-age rat bastards circa 1987 just received grace, which led to insight, which led to repentance, which led to more grace . . . which may lead to healing for a woman who was horribly bullied in her California high school and for those who bullied her all those years ago.

God often shows up when and where you least expect Him. That's the reality of this MSNBC story . . . and that's the deeper reality that American mainstream journalism is constitutionally incapable of reporting.

A woman says a Facebook poem she posted about bullying has brought pleas for forgiveness from former classmates who tormented her at a California high school 25 years ago.

Now, some of those classmates want to make amends and have asked Lynda Frederick, 42, of Rochester, N.Y., to attend her 25th high school reunion in Escondido, Calif., on July 27, compliments of the Orange Glen High School Class of 1987.

“I am nervous,” Frederick told msnbc.com on Friday. “I am looking forward to seeing them, even knowing that what has happened has happened. I have forgiven those who have hurt me in the past.”

Frederick said she received phone calls, emails and Facebook messages from former classmates after she posted a poem on the Orange Glen High School Class of 1987 Facebook page.

In her poem, she wrote:
that little girl who came to school with the clothes she wore the day before
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
the little girl who had to walk to school while others rode the bus
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
the little girl who had bruises and was dirty
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
the little girl who was always crying
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
“They’re all apologizing now for how I was treated,” Frederick said. “I had one man call me up and we talked for an hour on the phone. He cried and cried. I kept saying, ‘You can’t fix yesterday, so let’s fix today.’”
GRACE. It's what's for sinners.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

The dimpled menace

Click on the poster, print and distribute widely.
Help Coralville bring this criminal to justice!

There's a criminal afoot in the great state of Iowa.

This brigand preys on innocent bicyclists who wander onto the road less traveled, plying the pedalists with potentially poisonous potions and betting that the bootleg hooch will bring in a backdoor bounty of contraband cash.

In Coralville, Iowa, the official vendors for the RAGBRAI rendezvous couldn't catch a break for all the illicit dealings of fly-by-night criminals such as Abigail Krutsinger. It was well past time to call on the long arm of the law to safeguard the spirit of Adam Smith, the free flow of commerce and the American Way.

The threat was grave. The rule of law was in tatters.


The perp was 4.

In the joint, they just call her "Dimples."


DEAR READER . . . capitalism-loving American patriot, heed this cautionary tale from The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
According to Dustin Krutsinger of Coralville, police shut down his 4-year-old daughter’s stand after just 30 minutes. Krutsinger said the officer told his wife “this isn’t the first time I’ve had to do this.”

Krutsinger said his daughter was selling lemonade for 25 cents a glass, and had made less than $5. According to the city of Coralville, 4-year-old Abigail Krutsinger was in violation of a two-day ordinance that required all vendors to have permits when RAGBRAI rolled into town.

Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the ordinance was passed to protect riders from possible health risks. Similar ordinances have been adopted in other host towns for years, he said. Now Schamberger said he fears that the work of 500 volunteers may be forgotten, and lemonade stand shutdowns will be remembered.
FEAR? FEAR? He'd better pray the lemonade-stand shutdowns are remembered.

After all, you know what they say: Kill one, teach a hundred.

Besides, they need to learn young.

Friday, July 15, 2011

That coulda been AL-QAIDA lemonade!


In Georgia, the law's the law. And you have to be "consecutive" in enforcing the law.

If you're one of Midway's finest, that means you have to consecutively work the steps of policing an unheard-of burg in the wilds of Carter Country.

First . . . be an idiot.


Being a bully, you can work on when you run across a lemonade stand run by three little "girlses."


UNFORTUNATELY, a Savannah TV station thought it was sufficient to do only a news story on Barney Fife Gone Wild (and in drag):
The girls had only been opened [sic] for one day before Midway’s police chief and another officer cruised by and saw the stand.

“They told us to shut it down [and we didn't know why],” 10-year-old Skylar Roberts said.

“We had told them, we understand you guys are young, but still, you’re breaking the law, and we can’t let you do it anymore. The law is the law, and we have to be consistent with how we enforce the laws,” Midway Police Chief Kelly Morningstar said.

By a city ordinance, the girls must have a business license, peddler’s permit, and food permit to set up shop, even on residential property. The permits cost $50 a day and a total of $180 per year. City officials said it’s their job to keep everyone safe and healthy, and there can be no exceptions to the rules.

“We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with, so we acted accordingly by city ordinance,” Chief Morningstar said.

“It’s almost like they don’t have anything better to do. I’m going to let it go. I’m trying to teach them good. I don’t think if I keep on, it’ll teach them a good thing,” Amy Roberts said.
NO, DOING a story on this and letting it go is neither good television nor good citizenship. What's required here is the Full Gomer.
STEP 1: Get copies of the municipal code and the state criminal code. And a lawyer.

STEP 2: You, the lawyer, your cameraman and the assembled volumes of The Law
(which is The Law, you know) stake out Chief Ditzo and her Keystone Crusaders.

STEP 3: Wait for them to violate something. Keep the camera running.

STEP 4: Once the violation has occurred and been duly videotaped, you, the lawyer, the assembled volumes of the state and municipal codes and the cameraman pile out of your stakeout location --
camera running -- yelling "Citizen's arrest! Citizen's arrest!"
MAKE SURE you go step-by-step in this, and don't try to do all this stuff concurrently. That wouldn't work.

Because you have to be consecutive in enforcing the law.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The campaign against epic a-holes


While gay and lesbian activists were busy politicizing bullying and telling America that stopping some bullying is more crucial than stopping the other 85 percent (or whatever) of bullying, this was playing itself out in Trenton, Mich.

Watch the video. Contemplate the sick, sick spectacle of the Neighbors From the Bowels of Hell ridiculing and harassing a dying 7-year-old girl, all because of a neighborhood feud. Consider going so far as to fill your yard with tombstones.

Picture hauling a fake coffin past the dying girl's house. In a pickup painted as a ghoulish hearse.

Imagine posting a picture of the dying child's dead mother in the arms of the Grim Reaper on your
Facebook page. Which also features a picture of little Kathleen Edward's head replacing the skull in a skull and crossbones.

People all across the Detroit area, and all around the world, are outraged. They've been holding candlelight rallies at the girl's house.

And the tormentors, Scott and Jennifer Petkov, now are national pariahs.


FOR SOME REASON, the Petkovs now say they're sorry. Very, very sorry.




AS FAR as I know, the swift end to those bullies' reign of terror was not the work of the National Coalition to Stop the Torment of Dying Children. It was the work of "You don't do that to children. Period. Much less dying ones."

It was the work of "How dare you treat people that way?"

It was the work of "You're a couple of cruel scumbags, and now we're going to kick your miserable asses."

IT WAS the work of common human decency.
Remember that?

If we want to stop bullying -- if we want to prevent tormented kids from killing themselves and all manner of societal awfulness -- maybe what we need is just a single campaign . . . a single advocacy group. Call it the Campaign for Common Decency.

Because,
face it, common decency needs all the help it can get these days.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Suicide: It's an equal-opportunity killer


In case you've forgotten, America -- and given the state of the American hype machine the past week or two, I think you may have -- being gay is not the only reason youth get bullied.

It is not the only reason they kill themselves.

And, frankly, I'm starting to get scared that people are getting the message that gay-bashing is the only bullying going on out there. I'm afraid everything else is going to get overlooked.



HOW ABOUT this, America? How about we stop the bullying -- and suicides -- of all youth? Gay, straight, fat, thin, geeky, brainiac, spazzy, dorkish, gimpoid, stuck-up, slutty, virginal, lame-o, klutzy, doofus and religious fanatic.

Let's help them all.

Let's protect them all.

Let's save them all.

At its root, teen bullying -- or any bullying, for that matter -- isn't because kids are gay (or fill-in-the-blank). It's because kids are different in some way, and adolescence is hell on "different."

It's easy as hell to become the Other when you're 15. Hell, it's easy enough when you're 50. We humans don't "do" Other very well.

I've seen kids catch hell for all kinds of reasons. And oftentimes, kids who catch holy, unrelenting hell end up hating themselves enough -- or wanting the pain to stop badly enough -- that they embrace the most permanent solution they can think of . . . for themselves, or for the pain.

THERE WAS a rash of teen suicides in Omaha about five years ago, bringing wider attention to a deadly trend across Nebraska. The deaths led the Omaha World-Herald to publish a huge, and excellent, series on the subject -- not that our short attention spans let us recall this.

Or recall that the teen deaths, while sometimes linked to bullying, rarely had anything to do with homosexuality.

I don't mean to minimize how badly gay kids get treated -- they often are treated horribly, and that is horribly wrong. And, indeed, sometimes the specific illustration can give us a good idea of the general picture.

Sometimes, the "little" story tells the bigger one in a manner we can wrap our brains around.

But in this case, I think it's possible that the smaller picture might end up obscuring the larger one.

And the life that costs may be your kid's.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Dear RIAA: You Custer. Us Crazy Horse.

Thanks, RIAA! Now what the people are doing with your labels' music isn't stealing anymore. It's a political protest.

And I say
"Power to the People!"

When the recording industry resorts to treating its customers like common criminals for ripping CDs they've bought onto the hard drives of computers they own, as detailed in this Washington Post story, it's time to engage in political acts aimed at bringing down those corporate tyrants:

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE to know is this: How many people use iTunes software? How many have used it to rip their CDs onto their computers? How many people have music on their iPods that originally was on a CD they bought?

Now, does the RIAA think it can lock us all up? It might get some of us, but the ones it doesn't -- and that number will be legion --
will kill the record labels dead.

Book it.

You act like you're George Armstrong Custer. We
are Crazy Horse. And we buy WhoopAss by the case.