You all know I'm the first to call someone racist, oftentimes based on the loosest of reasoning. I am a militant liberal when it comes to social issues.

You also all know that I'm incredibly critical of modern rap, that I draw a distinction between hip-hop and rap, and will argue with you for hours about what makes Lil' Wayne utter crap. I am the white kid in this Onion article/video. I automatically dismiss your song if it contains even one n-word, denigration of women, or any bragging. New Jay-Z album? Crap. New Kanye album? Crap. You all know this.

So it may come as a surprise that I do not agree with this Feministing blog post about some new, typically overproduced pop song by some young girl from Australia (Lorde). Atypically, the song contains some criticism of the subject matter present in most overproduced pop songs.

My friends and I – we’ve cracked the code.
We count our dollars on the train to the party.
And everyone who knows us knows that we’re fine with this,
We didn’t come from money.

But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom.
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room,
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair

The author of the blog post retorts:

Because we all know who she’s thinking when we’re talking gold teeth, Cristal and Maybachs. So why shit on black folks? Why shit on rappers? Why aren’t we critiquing wealth by taking hits at golf or polo or Central Park East? Why not take to task the bankers and old-money folks who actually have a hand in perpetuating and increasing wealth inequality?

I'm not here to say something mean in response to the blog author because the last two questions are completely valid and there most likely are songs about them - they probably just aren't mainstream. I mean, off the top of my head, I know The Procussions deal with income inequality in a lot of their songs.

But there also needs to be criticism, specifically, of things like what the author is taking issue with. Gold teeth, Cristal, and Maybachs are indicative of dumb behavior, not "black folks" behavior. It's entirely okay, and not racist, to call those things out - regardless of how many rappers/black folks seem to be enamored of them (which makes them stereotypes). It's okay to make fun of those stereotypes, however, because those things are stupid choices - and are just as worthless as golf or polo in Central Park East.

I would be remiss were I to avoid commenting on this budget thing going on at the Capital. So here I am, Bitch-Mode™ enabled and my rant in the chamber of the Insult firearm.

Republicans. What a bunch of children. Obviously, they're running contrary to what I'm about to say but I'll say it anyway: You don't get to use the federal budget as a means to attack policy, regardless of your feelings about that policy. So those Republican cretins can sit there and spout off how they were elected to defund/dismantle the Affordable Care Act all they want but they are no better than Bill Cosby's daughter in the bit from "Himself" when he forbids the cookie and catches her trying to retrieve it.

Her: "I was getting the cookie for you!"
Him: "Well I don't want it."
Her: "Oh, can I have it?"

This budget dance is blatantly disingenuous.

Democrats. I know I harp on Republicans a lot - I mean, they are easy targets - but don't think you're safe from the scorn. You imbeciles are just as disconnected from reality as everyone else in power. The average health care exchange cost varies from state-to-state but just to demonstrate I'll use a low-ball: $84.00 per month for a single 25 year-old guy in Michigan, may have been elsewhere, making $25,000 per year. That's the base plan and it's a little bit less than the penalty. I know that roughly $1,000 a year doesn't sound like much. I know that $84 a month also doesn't. This is how I know they are in fantasy land, though: ask anyone making $25,000 per year - regardless of their age/marital status/number of children - if $84 every month is affordable.

It isn't. I'm not even going to explain because if you don't get it based on the base plan example then you won't understand. This is the problem with the ACA.

Don't read me wrong on this one: I get that Republican members of Congress have constituents who are genuinely concerned about this cost, and they feel they are doing the will of those people who voted for them (and I get the sense that a lot of Democrats don't seem to be on that page). The alternative, however, is no insurance. While a lot of people seem to think they don't need it, those people are being stupid.

So for the Republicans: You have to let this play out so we can work out the problems and make it better. Health care is essential so there's no keeping the current system as is. End of discussion.

And for the Democrats: The ACA doesn't go far enough so the costs are still too high. You need to be paying extensive attention so that it can be updated quickly.

With all of that said, here's what needs to happen:

• Immediate halt of payment to Congress from the "mandatory fund" until a budget is passed.
• Immediate halt of benefits to Congress until a budget is passed.

That would motivate those numbskulls.

I'm sure you thought you were safe from my ranting because I'm a liberal. Well, you believe in a fairy tale: so you get picked on as well. With that, I have four words for you.

Shut the fuck up.

America does not belong in Syria. We should never have made the threat in the first place. Your opinion on the matter is of no consequence and I'm, frankly, tired of U.S. politicians kowtowing to your whims on the basis of you being America's ally in that region. You're not going to suddenly stop being our allies and if you do, good luck.

"Oh, Calliander is an anti-Semite." Nope. I'm treating you as 'fairly' as I would treat any other religious organization, which is to say not fairly at all. I'm not an anti-Semite, and I'm not even going to qualify that with examples of Jewish friends or whatever like an anti-Semite would do. As I say to people who think I target Christians/Muslims/whoever unfairly: I care not what your flavor of faith is - only that you have it.

When you don't get your Snickers you turn into a neocon, dude.

Do not go into Syria.

I'm sorry if the "international community" has decided to take a firm stance on chemical weapons but they are no worse than any other kind of attack. In fact, they are no worse than drone attacks, for example. Between this childish, interventionist behavior and Snowden's revelations I have decided to stop supporting this Administration. I cannot get behind a group of people who think it's okay to spy on us, send robots to kill people, and stick our noses into foreign conflicts. This Administration is George W. Bush, just with gays.

Don't get me wrong - I believe that what's going on in Syria is inexcusable. However, I also keep up with things and I know that the "rebels" are just as bad as Assad. We can't go in there and help one or the other simply for that reason but if that isn't enough, there's also the whole not essential to our security and money reasons.

If what the United Kingdom says is true, and Sarin gas was used, then what we can do is cut Syria off. That way, both Assad and the rebels can feel the pain as a result of their actions. It's not the best answer, since there isn't a good answer, but it's better than helping one side or the other.

A week or so ago, the Internets were in an uproar because of the news that Ben Affleck will be the next actor to don the Bat suit (albeit in the Superman sequel).

A few days ago, the useless spectacle known as the MTV VMAs happened and Miley Cyrus apparently shook her nonexistent ass - much to many peoples' horror.

As per usual, I was critical of the Internet's response to both incidents - and by "Internet" I mean Facebook since it's the dominant platform. My specific problems with the Internet, of late, have run fairly parallel:

• Re-sharing unfunny images/memes - like those "Some eCards" or the Joker meme.
• Sharing shock posts that a simple Snopes search would reveal to be fake.
• Posting links to Upworthy/Buzzfeed.
• Talking about inane things - such as who Taylor Swift broke up with or whatever.
• Linking to some group's rendition of a popular song on YouTube.

I made a mistake and decided to utilize the events in Egypt and Syria as a counterbalance when referencing the Affleck/Cyrus nonsense, figuring that these Facebook cretins wouldn't be able to connect to what I was saying without some sort of topical reference. What I should have done was simply stuck to my original intent, the heart of this web site, and (in honor of R. Kelly) done some real talk:

I'm trying to make you feel stupid for talking about the casting of a movie character or what some worthless entertainer did at a wholly pointless awards show performance.

Someone sent me the image I attached to this rant in response to my multiple bitch-fests, and it helped me to clarify my position. So I thank that person for helping me to state my position more clearly. I don't really care whether you feel bad about ignoring/glossing over the events in Syria/Egypt/wherever else. You're an idiot for caring about Ben Affleck as Batman, Miley Cyrus shaking her booty, and sharing those un-funny images/YouTube videos/Upworthy articles/hoaxes.

And that's what's important. If you happen to also feel bad as a result, all the better.

Dumbasses.

So Centaur sent a Tweet to Robert Zimmerman, who is apparently making decent use of his 15 minutes of fame (don't worry, no hashtags were used since they are for mongrel idiots) courtesy of his brother having killed Trayvon Martin. I couldn't agree more with the content of the message but since Tweets are so short I wanted to go over what it's all about, especially since a few folks have re-Tweeted it. Centaur and I share the same mind on this issue, even if we diverge at gun bans - my views on a gun ban would probably be grouped into the "conservative" column.

Apparently, this media mastermind posted a picture of Martin giving the middle finger (obtained from the kid's Facebook or something) next to a picture of the kid who killed a 13 month-old baby in Georgia, who was also giving the middle finger. The pictures were accompanied by, "A picture speaks a thousand words. Any questions?" Well, actually, I have a lot of questions but I skimmed through this guy's Twitter profile and he seems a little confrontational to anyone not friendly to his stance, so I get the sense that asking a followup to the middle finger pics would not answer anything for me. In summation: while taking a picture of yourself giving the middle finger and posting it online is juvenile, it certainly isn't enough evidence for someone to derive a full profile of your personality or to intimate that it proves your guilt in a crime. If Zimmerman had posted a picture of Trayvon Martin at a Nickelback concert, on the other hand, that is proof-positive of guilt.

Anyway, that's not the issue here. Zimmerman followed his picture up with another Tweet concerning the events in Georgia:

Lib media shld ask if what these2 black teens did 2 a woman&baby is the reason ppl think blacks mightB risky.

I'll do my best to try to decode this from Douchebag: "The liberal media should ask if what these two black teens did to a woman and her baby is the reason people think blacks might be risky." Let's look over the fact that typing like that is an offense as serious as being a Nickelback fan, and focus on the actual message here. Robert Zimmerman is telling us that because the person/people who committed a heinous act are black that The New York Times should run a front page headline about whether blacks might be perceived as risky by the general populace. I'm assuming that, "ppl," or, "people," in his Tweet is meant to convey society as a whole. I almost checked the 'Comedy' checkbox for Category of this rant as a result of that. I mean, the implication is absolutely preposterous to the minds of pretty much every thinking person since you can change out "black" for "asian" or "white" or anything else, leaving you with an equally hilarious misstatement. There's really only one instance where that statement isn't absurd, but we'll get to that in a few paragraphs.

As one could expect, Zimmerman was called out for saying that. He even got to appear on that fuckwad Piers Morgan's show. I didn't see that clip but I'm going to assume Morgan pretty much spent the entire time talking over him. Now, he had a choice at this point: he could have owned up to what he said and apologized, or he could have backpedaled and tried to "explain" what he meant. What did he do?

I realize those were controversial and offensive and I did publicly apologize for them. I'm a human being. I'm being upfront about what I did. I made a mistake. We've been led to believe that it's a junior-high-school-aged person because of the pictures. The analogy is these are two people who chose to represent themselves in this way. One was accused of killing a baby, and whatever's in his social media makes the rounds immediately. However, the other person who almost killed my brother had he disarmed him - my brother had every indication to believe he would have killed him - his social media is off limits.

Nice combo, Rob! "I made a mistake. Now let me tell you what I really meant..." (Obviously, he didn't say all of that in a row, I just combined them all into one block for ease of reading.) Hats off to your attempt at bringing the conversation back to the middle finger pictures. For the record, Zimmerman's point about Martin's social media being off limits is actually valid, even though nobody believes his brother seriously thought his life was in danger. That's what makes this situation so masterful. Anyway, Centaur's Tweet read:

Your remarks were not a mistake: Why apologize? Never issue an apology for something you feel strongly about.

Why do we feel like his remarks were not a mistake? Let's go back a few paragraphs: There's really only one instance where that statement isn't absurd, but we'll get to that in a few paragraphs. At no point in my life have I ever made the "mistake" of saying something even remotely like what Zimmerman said. None of my friends have done it. Not even when drunk (and anyway, drunken words are sober thoughts). What Robert is saying is that his brother was justified in being suspicious of Martin, even though it's established that the kid was not doing anything wrong. As I stated in my original discourse on this matter, I suspected George Zimmerman - while maybe not a racist - certainly profiled Trayvon Martin as a result of his skin color. I still don't know if I think George is a racist but it's pretty clear that his brother is. Racists think and say things like what Robert Zimmerman said, and then when they get called out on it by the rest of society they try to pass it off as, "Oh, I was just so heated about this issue and I said things I shouldn't have." Obviously, he was trying to defend his brother - which would rile anyone up - but he could have done that in any number of other ways without making a parallel between Trayvon Martin - a young man who was doing nothing wrong, just in the wrong place at the wrong time and unfortunate events resulted - and De'Marquise Elkins - a young man who shot and killed a 13 month-old child.

Conservatives like to come to someone's defense any time someone perceived as liberal calls someone a racist, because they feel it's overused or misapplied. I can understand that sentiment - shit, I think people get labeled anti-Semitic too easily when they are just being general assholes - but you can't look at this situation with an objective eye and conclude that Robert Zimmerman's mistake was his choice of words: His mistake was putting them out there for the public to see.

My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes. It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It's all done by machine.

Alaska Representative, Don Young. Man, I don't even know where to start or begin here. I'm just going to have to stream-of-consciousness this one:

• I realize this is an old guy but even my grandparents - older by at least six years - know you don't just casually toss around racial slurs.
• He can't possibly have thought that it was an acceptable term, could he? I mean, he hasn't actually apologized for saying it.
• If he had used the term, 'spics,' what kind of reaction would that have generated?
• Why wouldn't he have just said, 'workers,' instead? What purpose does using the pejorative serve?

That's all I can think of right now but man, that is just too funny. I know I'm a pretty liberal dude with no love for the GOP but I'd like to see how the crazies are reacting to this - probably trying to somehow pin this as a platform of the Republicans or something when it's really just some out-of-touch old dude.

Of course, this does remind me of the time that Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen" happened to be playing in the background (at a low volume) during a car ride and my grandmother on my father's side interrupted whatever conversation was happening to note: "This sounds like a bunch of coloreds, jazzing it up!"

As most of my friends know, I've been a pretty vocal supporter of gay rights for an incredibly long time. I've done my fair share of name calling, soapboxing, threatening, and other things related to my feelings on the matter. What I'm about to say is probably the oddest thing I've ever felt but it's the truth:

You're on your own now, gay folks.

That isn't a bad thing! The world is coming around. Sure, there are still people who don't like black folks running around but look at how the general public reacts when someone says or does something truly racist. Maybe the laws aren't as caught up as they need to be but the point is that black people are legitimate. I don't worry that, at some point, America is going to suddenly change its mind and go back to being crazy about skin color.

Similarly, as I sit here and observe my friends on Facebook changing their profile pics to a red equality sign, I am overcome with the feeling that you've made it. The Supreme Court is going to strike down DOMA and refer Prop 8 back to California, meaning that gay rights in places like Connecticut, New York, et al will be recognized federally and then it will be up to the other states to join the present. I'm not sure when the rest of the states will come around but, since any argument against equal rights can be argued down to either a lack of knowledge or plain incorrect data or stupidity, they will. I have no concerns or fears any more about that.

It's a good feeling. You still have my support but I know all you homos can handle shit for yourselves now. I've got your backs, though - having a hard time with a particularly stubborn moron? Just let me know and I will argue the hell out of them until they realize they are a failure as a human being.

Boom!

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, you faggots. Now go take advantage of a sleeping girl.

Following the events of the Trayvon Martin case at the beginning of this year, I wrote a serious piece where I said the following:

I have never been, nor do I ever expect to be, an advocate for firearm bans – a position that runs counter to most of my stances and is especially curious to many since I have never even handled a gun. ... Yet, even in the face of school shootings, drug wars, suicides, and other atrocities committed with guns, I still don’t support gun bans. Perhaps, like several of my other ethical positions, I would prefer to get to the root of the problem and fix that – I don’t know.

President Obama came to Newtown for a vigil, where he gave a decent speech about the tragedy that took probably the youngest set of lives so far. In it, he said the following:

We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can't be an excuse for inaction - surely we can do better than this. If there's even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town from the grief ... then surely we have an obligation to try.

It pains me greatly to say this but what happened in Newtown jarred my view. I am deeply against banning anything because I think it's reactionary and doesn't solve problems. However, my "pain" isn't anywhere near comparable to what the parents of those children, the friends and families of the adults must be going through. Is clinging to the right to bear arms an excuse for inaction? Do statistics about gun ownership and other countries with tougher or lax gun laws even matter at this point? I am working through this but my inner debate leads me to believe that I'm probably going to ease up on my anti-gun-ban stance in the coming weeks.

Regardless of that, one thing that I hope for sure comes from this is a complete redefinition of how we view mental illness in the United States. I have a sibling with a mental illness and one of the most frustrating things I've encountered is how a lack of funding means only two possible outcomes: mental hospital or jail. My sibling recently had a long streak of being okay end - we're talking several years - and it ended abruptly. There was no change of medication (in fact, I think for those several years, no medication was being taken) so clearly it had to have been something that happened yet no doctor wants to spend any time talking about the cause: it's fifteen minutes and then you either get sent on your way or you get a prescription. It's a sickening timeline. This article does a pretty good job of pointing out the seriousness of the issue:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html

Have a good evening and be safe.