If you haven’t seen this bit from John Oliver’s new show, you should. You should watch it before Tuesday’s election, and then again periodically, just so you remember what I keep telling you. That elections matter. And that it is important to pay attention to not just Federal elections, but to the ones lower down the food chain.
Apparently it takes someone from England, from the country from which we declared our independence, to explain to us just how we are letting our own government get away from us.
Because we don’t pay attention to “the unimportant levels of government.”
Ummm, it is at the state level that we’re really getting screwed. I can attest to this as a resident of “Virginia is For Ultra-sounds.” Yup, it is the folks whose names we don’t even know, who get to decide these issues that most impact your life and mine.
They are also the ones gerrymandering the US Congressional districts. They are eliminating access to abortion, to birth control and screwing us in a hundred different ways. And the state legislatures are the breeding ground, where the Not Ready For Prime Time Players go until they become the Michelle Bachmann’s and the Louie Gomert’s who end up framing our national debate.
[I read recently that John Oliver has been proclaimed the best journalist currently working. I don’t recall who said it, but I think they are right.]
Well, maybe you should put down that beverage — I love making liquid come out of your nose, but only when I’m brilliantly funny. This is funny in that “You know folks are gonna buy this one” sort of way.
You see, Mitch McConnell ‘a latest tactic is to claim that the way to end gridlock in Congress, is to elect MORE FUCKING REPUBLICANS.. I am not making this up. Here is the article http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6087292
Remember, Mitch (aka Yertle the Turtle) was one of the architects of Gridlock.. He famously worked with other GOP leaders in an effort to ensure that the then-newly elected President Obama failed. Because you see, the GOP is more important than America. And Republicans are more important than Americans. AmmIRite Folks???
Personally, I don’t thinkEricans are that stupid. But if Americans buy that malarkey, then I am going to start selling bridges and swampland.
Maybe you’ve seen this before. Maybe you haven’t. But it is worth watching. It is worth seeing again.
We do everything we can to protect our kids from possible dangers. Except when it comes to guns. Really. How can we as a country, we as thinking rational people, we as parents continue to let the NRA decide.
Get rid of politicians who won’t stand up to the NRA. Get rid of politicians who think that it is just dandy that anybody can get a gun. Or collect enough of them to maintain an arsenal.
Protect your family. Vote these folks out of Dodge.
My husband John makes a point of not laughing at my jokes. He pretends that I am not the funniest person he knows — even though I often hear him repeating my zingers with a chuckle. John has helpfully suggested that whenever I am “trying” to be funny, that I should hold up a flag to let the world know. I counter that he is humor challenged.
As it turns out, I recently learned that there are loads of humor challenged folks.
And they read our blogs!
SHIT!
Now most of you know my good bloggin’ buddy, Peg-O-Leg. Well, Peg was Freshly Pressed just yesterday! It was a delayed FP’ing for a post she wrote over a month ago, entitled: Facebook Ruined My Life, Now They Must Pay. It’s about how she wants to sue Facebook because somebody put up an embarrassing picture of her from her childhood.
It was a joke, son.
But the thing is, she got comments from strangers criticizing her for suing Facebook. I’m not joking, she got nasty comments about the lawsuit she was clearly making up for a humor blog.
Just how many humor challenged folks are there?
***
Peg’s predicament reminded me of one of my very early posts. I couldn’t resist reposting it, because, well, it was my very first blogging experience with possibly humor challenged folks.
Manitoba Bound
It’s time to export all the stupid people in the United States to another country. Congress will go along with it as long as we can designate “stupid people” a commodity. A trade lawyer I consulted suggested that designating them as “spare parts” under the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement would permit widespread exportation of stupid people from all over the country. It would also ensure that only “real” stupid people and not fake or “counterfeit” stupid people qualify. US export numbers will skyrocket, the debt limit will take care of itself, and we won’t owe China a penny. Or a Yuan. The economy will be saved. More importantly, I won’t have to deal with them any more.
I decided to send them to Canada – nobody lives there, anyway. Manitoba, to be exact. Why? It’s easier to spell than “Saskatchewan.” Manitoba is right there in the middle of the continent where the stupid people won’t be able to hurt themselves. Like one big padded room. They will be safe, happy, well cared for. Cable TV. Internet access — even broadband. I’m not unkind, you know. A team of teenagers will be available to help them turn on their TVs, stereos, DVD players, mobile phones. Friends and family members can visit anytime.
There are a lot of stupid people in the US, you say, so where do we start? We’re starting with the ones that bug me the most. It’s only fair. After all I am the brains here.
I deal with stupid people every day. I work in medical products litigation. Stupid people believe the TV lawyers’ mantra “Sue then Retire.” Each time I walk into my office, I am smacked upside the head by the stupid actions of stupid people who sue for big bucks. I learn way too much about them, sort of like when you interrupt your 74-year-old uncle in the shower. You’d be happier without the image.
I want themoutta here.
Here’s a contender:
A woman named Mona was sick. Mona went to her doctor and was given a 30 day prescription for the drug that would treat her. She took it to the pharmacy where the pharmacist typed up a label and put it onto the bottle that the manufacturer dispensed the tablets in, because conveniently, those pills already came packaged in bottles of 30 pills. Terrific! Safe! Foolproof! How many times have you gotten medicine this way? Loads of times, I wager. Have you gotten it that way lately? Nope. Thank Mona.
Now Mona is a very precise woman. She carefully monitors everything. She uses a pedometer to count her steps, compares food package labels. Understands the food pyramid. She doesn’t walk when the “Don’t Walk” sign starts blinking. She knows the calorie, carbohydrate and vitamin content of everything she swallows. Brushes her hair precisely 100 strokes each night. Flosses. Therefore, she read the label that came with the pills from the drugstore, too. She opened the sealed package, and poured out her first dose. That’s when Mona’s ticket to Manitoba was punched.
Because when she dumped out that first pill into her hand, she also poured out a tiny crunchy plastic package about a half inch square. It contained salicylic acid – packages like that are put into many products to help keep the contents dry and to prevent mold. The little package in her hand said “DO NOT EAT.” So she didn’t. At all. She didn’t eat for 30 days while she took her medicine.
She didn’t call her doctor and scream:
“You never told me I couldn’t eat!”
She did not call the pharmacist and say:
“Can I at least have toast? Or Jell-O?”
And when she got very ill from (1) being stupid and (2) not eating for 30 days, did she feel embarrassed? Did she pack for Manitoba? No. She sued the pharmacy and the drug manufacturer for millions of dollars for pain, suffering, and lost wages. She won.
So Mona goes first.
And the woman who fell into the shopping mall fountain while texting and then sued the shopping mall? You saw her. She went onto local and national news shows to tell the story and to complain that no one helped her after she fell. She said repeatedly that she was embarrassed that everyone she knew had seen her fall into the fountain on YouTube. She was upset at being called “Fountain Lady.” She appeared on television voluntarily, where they replayed the video three times for people like me who hadn’t yet enjoyed it. She made absolutely sure that “Fountain Lady” was unmasked, because this caption appeared at the bottom left of the TV screen:
My husband John believes that the whole reason that the NRA is bat-shit crazy about getting everybody guns is so that bit by bit, everybody will become afraid enough of their own shadows and/or that of their neighbors that they will have no choice but to buy their own gun to protect themselves from everybody else in the US who has one and is likely to come a-callin’. And then, of course, the gun manufacturers would get even more blood money and pay more dues! It’s a win-win for the NRA and the manufacturers! The fact that the country will lose is just collateral damage.
John may be on to something. Because just today I read that there are folks in the NRA who are advocating that non-eagle-eye folks have the right to guns, too. Not only people who need corrective lenses, but folks who cannot see at all. In a less politically correct time we might have called them “Blind Folks.”
Now, now, don’t get all worried. According to Dom Raso, the guy in this video, since blind folks have such good hearing, they don’t need to see what they’re shooting at.
So the logical conclusion is that they will not just randomly start firing their guns around like irresponsible folks. (Not that there are any irresponsible gun owners out there, natch.) That makes me feel much better.
Now I grant you, there is scientific evidence that blind folks can hear better than those with better vision. Still, I’m really not at all comfortable with the idea that one of my neighbors who is vision impaired might have a gun. Well, not if he can put bullets into it and fire it, anyway.
But this discussion led me to a brilliant idea. Now I know how I will protect myself during the apocolypse and/or the rapture and/or when the guvment’s jackbooted thugs come to my house.
FiftyFourandAHalf 