#or actually solves any actual problems humanity faces. fuck most of this garbage creates more problems
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DEXTER SEASON TWO SENTENCE STARTERS (PART TWO)
Lines taken from 2x07-2x12 of the show Dexter. Feel free to change pronouns or edit in any way to better fit your needs. Here is part one.
❛ I thrive on chaos. But this is good, too. ❜
❛ I had to do a little creative problem-solving at someone else's expense. ❜
❛ Pardon my tits. ❜
❛ Are you trying to fuck her or set her on fire? ❜
❛ Sometimes the truth speaks from a peaceful place. It's taken me a long time to find that place, but I think I have, and it's telling me you're not the right one for me. I'm so sorry. ❜
❛ Is that what I am? Clean? 'cause I don't feel that way at all. ❜
❛ No, I won't do that. I won't let you turn me into you. ❜
❛ Hope you don't expect me to comment on that so you can record it on your hidden tape recorder. I wasn't born yesterday. ❜
❛ Your past is a bigger mystery than fucking Jimmy Hoffa. ❜
❛ No matter what you try, no matter when, no matter how hard you work, I'll always be a step ahead of you for one simple reason. I own you. ❜
❛ When I'm alone and it's quiet, I get scared shitless, like I start hearing what's really going on inside. ❜
❛ 'Cause when you're around, I kind of feel like I can deal with anything, you know? ❜
❛ I've always worked best in the shadows, and that's where I have to stay. ❜
❛ You can't go back. You know that. ❜
❛ You are not allowed to talk about anyone I date as long as you're seeing little Miss "pardon my tits." ❜
❛ She is obviously a vampire. A gross english-titty vampire. ❜
❛ Can't change who I am. I'm crass and dirty, and...I have a very filthy mind. ❜
❛ Jesus Christ. They sell anyone a gun in Florida, won't they? ❜
❛ That man. He wasn't trying to rob you. He was trying to kill you. ❜
❛ Nothing you could do,___, would scare me. ❜
❛ Whatever comes, we'll get through this together. I'm not leaving your side. ❜
❛ I need to embrace who I am, who I've always been. ❜
❛ It's like I've been living underwater, holding my breath, and now I can finally breathe. ❜
❛ ___ almost had me believing it was possible to change, to become something else, as if that ever really happens. I've always known what I am. ❜
❛ I'm finding it's best to accept things you can't change, you know? ❜
❛ Is this the monster that you keep telling me about? ❜
❛ Trust me, when you meet the monster, you'll know. ❜
❛ Nice. My subconscious isn't even bothering with symbolism. ❜
❛ I feel...such regret, which is rare for me. But not that I don't mess up. I do...just never so stupendously. ❜
❛ If they're looking for proof, they won't find it. Not here at least. ❜
❛ Then maybe you should come with us, because who knows what secrets will come ❜ pouring out of me once the drinks start flowing. ❜
❛ I'm done with it and you. Did I not make that clear last night? ❜
❛ Those friends of yours, they didn't even know you. They just see the mask, but I see it all. ❜
❛ Can't live with her. Can't kill her. ❜
❛ Fuck! I'm talking about my feelings. What the fuck is your problem? ❜
❛ I've always sensed there was something... off about him. Like he's hiding in plain sight. ❜
❛ If you got in the middle of this and you got hurt… ❜
❛ The only way I can help you is if you turn yourself in. ❜
❛ Don't you disappear on me. ❜
❛ I want you to know that you meant a lot to me, more than you know, and... I just want to thank you for that. ❜
❛ If I never see her again, it'll be too soon. ❜
❛ Sleep would be nice, but there's too much to do. ❜
❛ Okay, I may be sleeping with him, but it doesn't mean he tells me shit or listens to me about anything, so stop asking! ❜
❛ That's right, motherfucker! It's over. ❜
❛ I knew there was something with you. But this shit? ❜
❛ What can I say? You were right about me. I never held it against you. I don't now. ❜
❛ It's a graze wound. Minor tissue abrasion. No hemorrhage along the bullet track. Sorry. I think I'm gonna live. ❜
❛ If you're not gonna let me go, then kill me now. Just get it over with. ❜
❛ You're a killer. I catch killers. ❜
❛ So it's okay to take a life as long as you get a paycheck for it? ❜
❛ Either kill me or set me free. ❜
❛ Taking a life is one thing, but the care and feeding of it is another. ❜
❛ I'm generally confused most of the time. ❜
❛ You ever care about anyone? Then you shouldn't have to ask. 'Cause when you care about someone, you do what you have to do. ❜
❛ I remember when life was easy, when the only question I worried about was "who's next?" Now it's: "How can I dodge my protective detail? "What should I do with my hostage?" These are not easy questions. ❜
❛ It's not about what I think. It's all about the evidence. ❜
❛ Hair-pulling may not be manly, but it's very effective. ❜
❛ If he wanted me dead, I'd be dead by now. ❜
❛ You are the only one I can count on, jackass. ❜
❛ It puts a pit in my stomach that I can only interpret as... sadness. ❜
❛ You working on an exit strategy? I'm afraid that's not gonna happen. ❜
❛ How come there's never a circus when you need one? ❜
❛ What was that shit last night? Some kind of fucking scare tactic? ❜
❛ Don't test me. I could have killed you. I didn't. ❜
❛ You're actually angry. I've never seen you angry. This is good. ❜
❛ I should warn you. You can't play on my feelings. I don't have any. ❜
❛ It's a tough job. It can wear on even the best of us. ❜
❛ I yell a lot...and bitch and complain, and I keep expecting people to guess what I want, but I never really say it. ❜
❛ And that was exciting, you know? The not knowing. What might happen, what could be. It was all possibility. ❜
❛ Your life is going to rest in the hands of the criminal justice system you put all your faith in. I wish you the best of luck. ❜
❛ You need help. Let me help you. ❜
❛ You don't have to do this! You don't have to kill this man! ❜
❛ Sorry it had to go down like this. But there really was no other way. ❜
❛ Stay away. Just stay away from me. ❜
❛ Did you happen to be stuffing a human leg into a garbage bag at that point? ❜
❛ There's that anger again. You got to let that out. ❜
❛ You're spinning. Let me help you. It's only a matter of time before you'll hurt someone else. ❜
❛ Take responsibility for who you are. ❜
❛ Why can't you just let me go? ❜
❛ If I got to choose a person... A real person... to be like, out of anyone, it'd be you. ❜
❛ Who joined who in the shower this morning? ❜
❛ For such a neat monster, I'm making an awfully big mess. ❜
❛ Maybe this is how evil works. Destroying everything it touches. ❜
❛ I've been held prisoner in a cabin for two fucking days. Fucking hellhole. ❜
❛ After everything we've been through lately, I just want... to be together with you guys. ❜
❛ You told me to take responsibility for what I am. You were right. ❜
❛ I can't live in this house of cards anymore, waiting for it all to fall down. I need to do something, you know? ❜
❛ If I do this, I need a day to get my affairs in order. ❜
❛ Mention that when they interview you for the story of my life. ❜
❛ Don't leave me in this cage, anything could happen. ❜
❛ I lie to everyone I know... except my victims right before I kill them. It's hard to establish much of a rapport there. ❜
❛ Sorry about the cage. ❜
❛ I've always been curious to try. Do you have any weed? ❜
❛ Love's a battlefield. Or in your case, a restraining order. ❜
❛ When a pretty girl smiles and bats her eyelashes, we're powerless to resist. ❜
❛ I met with a lawyer yesterday. He helped me prepare a living trust that gives you control of all my assets in the event of my death or... certain other situations. ❜
❛ God. Go away. This is creepy. ❜
❛ I'm free tonight, you wanna stop by? We'll have beer, a couple of steaks? I wanna talk to you about something. ❜
❛ I just need you to know that... you and the kids are very important to me. No matter what happens, I want you to always know that. ❜
❛ I know I've been taking things slow with us, but it's not because I don't have feelings for you. It's more like I have too many feelings, and I just wanna make sure to get it right. ❜
❛ I want you gone. Tonight. ❜
❛ I've spent a lifetime keeping up my guard, watching my back, wearing my mask. Relief was never in sight until now. ❜
❛ Lately, I was starting to feel like I had my head pretty far up my ass. ❜
❛ You decide who you are, who you want to be...and you hold onto that and ride it out. ❜
❛ I need some help! Just open the door! I'm being held captive. ❜
❛ Damn, it's good to see another face. I never thought I would. ❜
❛ When something beyond reason happens, it turns skeptics into believers. ❜
❛ If you believe that God makes miracles, you have to wonder if Satan has a few up his sleeve. ❜
❛ I can't exactly feel their pain, but I can appreciate it. ❜
❛ I kinda forgot who I was. I got it straight now. ❜
❛ The term is homicidal maniac. Not that I'm judging. ❜
❛ A public place. You thought I was gonna...That I would slip my needle into your neck? ❜
❛ You're afraid of me now, aren't you? ❜
❛ You're emotionally color-blind. You use the right words, you pantomime the right behavior, but feelings never come to pass. ❜
❛ You know the dictionary definition of emotions: longing, joy, sorrow...You have no idea of what any of those things actually feel like. ❜
❛ I created a monster of my own. ❜
❛ What did you do to make her so pathetically crazy for you? Does your dick dance? ❜
❛ What're we doing home in the middle of the day? She asked, hoping for sex. ❜
❛ Why? Why do I have to make up my mind? ❜
❛ I've never put much weight onto the idea of a higher power. But if I didn't know better, I'd have to believe that some force out there wants me to keep doing what I'm doing. ❜
❛ As it turns out, nobody mourns the wicked. ❜
❛ Am I evil? Am I good? I'm done asking those questions. I don't have the answers. ❜
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Hey so...
I have very little faith in the future right now. Honestly I have reason to suspect that this new decade, the 2020′s, will be a total shitshow. A shitshow of human suffering and misery unlike anything anyone alive has experienced.
I speak in regards to how things will pan out in the good ol’ USA, although I suspect things will turn to further shit across the globe.
I just don’t see anything good on the horizon. Politically, socially, environmentally, financially, nor spiritually. The 2020′s will be a calamitous era without any analogue to any previous decade in our kids’ textbooks.
Over 100 years of hard-fought social progress absolutely will be undone by the leadership in Washington, but precious little else will even be addressed. Take-home wages will continue to stagnate or even fall. Environmental degradation will continue at an exponential rate. Public infrastructure will largely collapse if is isn’t fully abandoned. Democratic governance will be largely abandoned. Human rights, already a concept on the decline, might not exist in 10 years time. Pandemics and resistant disease may both flourish this decade, unabated. Plus: the pension crisis, social security insolvency, predatory capitalism, increasing barriers to internet access, the insecure IoT, election hacking, the health care crisis, and microplastics. And more!
There are so many urgent problems that affect everyone, and there’s absolutely no will to solve them. It’s a crisis of leadership seldom seen. Too few people in a position to create change even cares. No shitty action has any consequence of merit. It’s the “fuck you” society. A teenager from Sweden pleas for action on the world stage and she’s roundly mocked, debased and ignored.
Each individual is on their own... and as it should be, most will say! Social darwinism, the “rugged individualist” ideals far too many people are returning to, combines with the horrific transformation of our society from one of ideas, virtues and progress to this insular, post-truth, anti-science dogmatic and authoritarian sandbox game. Perhaps this was the way society used to be like, if not for the apathy of our parents and grandparents to fully impart this to us.
If the world is full of people whose only motivation is self-interest, people with no compassion, no capacity to understand, no capacity to think critically, will society even stand in the face of crisis?
The future feels like a hellscape almost beyond imagination.
I think back to all the times that I’ve heard, first-hand or second-hand, an individual claim that “there’s far too many people in this world” or that “we need to thin the herd,” clutching vainly to this merit-based existence where everyone’s life is a privilege that must be earned, that must be proven to others, day in and day out. This argument wins the day. It grows more adherents. People are in cages on the U.S./Mex border and the false assumption that “it can’t happen to me” wins the day. The planet is on fire, but “fuck you--got mine.” It’s great. It’s fantastic. I need to watch what I say now because the silent majority is fed up with our shit.
So much will be radically different by 2029. The internet will still be around, with facebook and instagram, Apple and Amazon, plus a handful of general interest websites. NewsMax too, I suspect. But no tumblr. No Wordpress. No AO3. No blogs. No twitter. No tiktok. No more.... many things. But the ones still standing by 2030, they’ll still have Walmart, DuPont, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Verizon, Disney and pickup trucks.
You know, I very strongly doubt there will be free and abundant potable water, anywhere, by 2029. Tap water will become a thing of the past, just like the landline phone.
Hell by 2060 I wouldn’t be surprised if 75% of the world’s population to have perished, while planetary-scale geoengineering will have begun in earnest by then, by a largely robotic work force.
I very much want to be wrong about this and more.
I won’t get my hopes up. At my apartment, I no longer separate the recyclables from the trash. I’ve been told in confidence by people I know, from work and from the community, that everything in the town I live in is being landfilled now, for reasons, and has been for many years now. All the surrounding towns too. Among the reasons: near-zero public compliance with the recycling rules, plus no interest in hiring people to hose out all the crusted & moldy remains from those recyclables. Largely, it’s the long-standing, steadfast opposition to recycling from the get-go. Recycling is and always has been some liberal bullshit, like Earth Day, and plastics actually do biodegrade in landfills (they don’t but fuck science and evidence), and asking at all about what happens to the trash to begin with is stupid and I shouldn’t do it. Facilities to melt down plastics for reuse, well, there’s none near where I live. That’s why some recyclables not landfilled here are sent dumped overseas. No one can tell me if there is any such reuse industry at all for plastics and glass like there sorta is for paperboard. If I trash all my garbage, it’ll be landfilled locally instead of being dumped across the world. It’s the least bad option. I hate it. I hate it all. I hate the total lack of any regard for other people, for the planet, nor for the future. I hate that there’s so little I can do except complain. But only to the right people.
(Rethink the supply chain? Rethink consumer goods? Reusable container for everything? I get dirty looks just for using a reusable Whirley mug for gas station coffee, instead of the polystyrene cups provided because I’m “cheap.”. The state I live in has a partial ban on plastic bags that *may* go into effect in a few months if the law isn’t struck down in court. It’s great.)
No one cares and I shouldn’t either. That’s the answer I get. That’s the solution I read is being agreed upon. Just as long as the dump doesn’t smell too bad.
This is world I live in today.
Happy 2020.
#all the terrible people will get to create the terrible world they always dreamed of#long post#i'm not optimistic#happy new year#happy 2020#the 2020s#the future#the 2020's
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IF NOT INVADED BY CENTRAL AMERICAN EMIGRANTS, MOST DEFINITELY BY SCOTSMEN!
By Michael Bench
The borderwall is a manifestation of Donald Trump's stupidity and his string pullers' frayed ends on purpose. White House mandates have long used the Presidency as the global pulpit of foreign policy. The military has been the strong arm hiding the hammer behind a “peaceful diplomacy”. Americanism is paraded on their airwaves and served in bullets, mortars and air raids in Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen... The 'American way” served itself to fight against communism as American white privilege chose to define it. When we fight enemies ideologically, the enemy we make of them on empty haver becomes noise pollution. Wars on empty ideology conflict drain the American way of its kudo's; those still remaining. Other countries should feel appropriate to hand president trump citations abroad for disturbing the peace.
To understand the borderwall blunder is to recognize the ideological colonialist Usgov has continued to be. The White House sells American values from one face and by domestic strategy now draws the shades over the window. Immigration is our domestic problems on our own continent. Regard the entire Americas as a continent politically. If there is a path to the northlands, you may as well see the reality human migration isn't any less natural than the birds at our feeders. Now lets put another layer on this. Lets say those 'birds' migrating northward are like hockey fans feeling disheveled about unsafe social systems, limited food at cost and worst still.. no ice rinks. Blimey! These northset birds in ponchos and NHL attire arrive at what should never be a wall. A wall becomes a monument to champion against. Longing eyes sport the attire of a year's Stanley Cup champions never to be.. Attributes of desperation are unifying; a nation of their own.. a proverbial kilt .. Mob mentality will unite people at the wall, desperation will organize them, innovation will fortify their strategy. Allegedly if you give enough monkeys typewriters they'll arrive at silly book like a christian bible. We aren't talking about monkeys. The wall will solidify a change of mind; a sporran full of sunshine. And We are confronted by a border strained by an influx of the Americas' own Scotsmen!!!
Central American mafias will have a ready clan of Scottish drug mules able to evade the police in numbers. They're at the wall and growing in numbers and identity. The Scotsmen start identifying and celebrating their status.. And.. like hockey fans that feel like winners , soon things start on fire;border police patrols cars , people are up on light posts, garbage cans are tossed around like beachballs A party of validity. The Central America drug gangs know our game better than Trump practices it. Indulgence is the spice of life. They'll feed the party's fire with six pack of RPGs to create a simple hole in the wall. Or Holes.. The Scotsmen will migrate. Eventually Americans will realize the expense of the wall has really been a target range for those who Scotsmen would defy it.
The immigrants choose flight toward a better life. On the otherside of that wall is the land of milk and honey; so they've been told; gloated, lied to. Milk and honey poisoned with glyphosate, and squeeezed from the teets of cows abused/neglected by Utah ranchers. Inside the wall is an abatoir against humanity. All is not as it seems. The dream in America is grounded in turbulent administration clashes; a heroin addict's euphoric wave and crash. The USgov is guilty of pulling down the window shades on it's own people. In fact .. The American people are not Congress's people no matter the vote process. Americanism is a pair of parties indoctrinating one of two narratives neither very interested in solutions;historically; just incumbency. United States isnt now a human system; its an indoctrination to the service of money.
The global propaganda machine at the White House's microphone has brought on the Scotsmen. A woodsmen that cooks BBQ openly brings wolves. The mad scientists' laboratory on a hilltop blasting radiation and lights into the night sky will bring people peaking in the windows.. (That lab is my dream, ) Curiosity attracts attention. Desperation insures it. The White House parades the American way. If the American way sounds better than than shithole country the Brasilians, Venezuelans, Colombians, Or . The Scotsmen dwell, temptation is our widespread global outreach fault; Our United Nations microphone fault.. to beg their arrival at our border. We've asked them to be interested. Its our loud foreign policy at fault. We don't give the Scotsmen enough credit for demanding better of their life. Our fixup job on Iraq leaves doubt Americanism can thrive elsewhere. A wall would naturally be a Trump platform. Conservatives and republicans like trump made walls a business. They put up walls to avoid seeing the world despite always having an opinion about everything in it. Walls are a defensive coping mechanism, not a solution.
And soon the Scotsmen will feel deceived on arrival. Another shithole country!? No! They'll be confused. The origin of United States Shithole propaganda has multiple sphincters. New York City, Capital Hill and Texas; Sometimes Utah and Las Vegas as well. Aye, Its a bit Clarty about this Bahoochieville!! America's bullshit factory will curl their kilts. Its not necessarily better here. All the more reason our government must be willing to actually look at and insure the reasons Scottish emigration ends. It's a scary proposition Capitol Hill would seek to be effective at anything. Solving problems isn't something they're accustomed. Democrat and republican donors domesticate their candidates to be handsoff regulators. They resent such labor skills normalized for their political careers. Neither doomsdayer politician or religious zealot lasts long in good times. America's issue is it accepts the concept of utopianism too willingly.
Our concept of America thinks good systems need no attention; WRONG. If it noot berken, ain't no ned to fix it.. WRONG. Good systems need energy. Something will always be wrong.. It's our role .. as Americans, to not overdramatize small problems into toppling juggernauts of our structure. We must recognize the severity of other problems as the juggernauts that they are.. The climate issue is exactly that level of problem. Our small problems are given more attention.. The American way and American government has an incompetent process of prioritizing problems by severity. In lack of single payer healthcare.. I attest our government officials are a symptom of the mental disease taken by our ages of social neglect. The newly arrived Scotsmen might see it. They will see it. Its America's real vulnerability .. behind the wall. We're not capable of being a nation without our own self affirmations. The appointment of trump, if representative.. concludes either the Constitution and law is empty ideology or we lie to each other to spin wheels in a nowhere direction. Again, perhaps a utopian delusion to be inert. Without being sustained by our own shithole country mechanisms, we can't survive not bullshitting each other. I guess we might be better-off Scotsmen as well.
The matter of unauthorized Immigration should be a NAFTA level coalition event. Canada was left out of the process of paying for the wall. Moreso.. the NAFTA rebargain ought have prioritized it's outreach to Central and South America. Immigrants are fleeing to Canada too. A scope on the world through an economic lens is not a vision capable to see problems and solve problems without a humanistic (management theory) lens to assist people be in a social system. An economic system is not designed to be a social system nor should capitalism ever mistake itself for a social system. The American political systems 'fight against communism” has attempted to rally an us vs them mentality as if our western economic caste system is a viable excuse for social utility. It's not. In order for the unreasonable immigration to stop , we must stop its causes and United States government has now a necessary reality to shut the fuck up about “its own importance” in the world.
My new book Native Supremacy is available on Amazon. #2020WhiteHouse
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I Will Let Go of Straws When You Let Go of the Bloated Corpse of Capitalism
by Kari Castor
This is not a hot take. This take is, at best, lukewarm and rapidly cooling.
But you know what? IDGAF. You knew what you were getting when you saw the title of this thing, and you clicked on it anyway, so here we are.
Fuck your straw ban.
Look, let me level with you. I was, initially, fairly blasé about this whole straw nonsense. Whatever, ban the straws if it makes you feel better, I guess.
When I mentioned to my boyfriend that I was going to write a rant about straws, he appeared very slightly nonplussed. “You looked at me like I was crazy when I ranted about straws weeks ago.”
“Yes, but then it personally affected me, and now I’m annoyed about it.”
(This is true, by the way – I definitely did give him the patiently-suffering-through-your-dementia stare several weeks ago when he was on about straws, but I do that frequently, so I don’t know why it was particularly noteworthy on that occasion. It’s also true that I immediately conceived of writing this piece when I was personally inconvenienced by the anti-straw campaign and not a moment before.)
When I mentioned to one of my friends that I was going to write a rant about straws, he said, “What’s the problem? I know it doesn’t solve the whole thing, but it’s a step in the right direction, at least.”
No. It’s bullshit.
Here’s why.
Every little bit helps, right?
Oh my god, of course it doesn’t.
Save an extra penny every day for a year, and you’ll end up with roughly enough money to buy yourself a cup of coffee. Did that help? Does that impact your life in any meaningful way? I don’t care how much you like coffee; it almost certainly did not.
Some bits are too little to help. Not everything is a meaningful change.
Is this straw thing a meaningful change?
Well, let’s look at a few numbers, shall we?
There’s a widely-touted estimate that Americans use 500 million straws a day. A child came up with that number. No, I’m not being facetious – a literal 9-year-old child was the originator of that number and everyone’s been running around accepting it. Ok, fine, kids aren’t always totally stupid and I respect that this one cared enough about a thing to do some research and then become an activist to try to make a change in the world. That’s legitimately rad and the sort of thing we should be encouraging all our kids to do.
But, also, fellow adults, could we fact-check statistics that are produced by 9-year-olds? Please? No?
Ok, so, nobody’s actually sure how many straws America uses every day; apparently we’ve all just collectively decided to to roll with this 500 million number. Fine, for the sake of argument, let’s accept it. Yearly, if I’m mathing correctly, that comes to around 183 billion straws.
Americans also use an estimated 100 billion plastic bags annually. (I don’t know where that number originally came from either; it might as easily be another 9-year-old – I’m just taking what appears to be the generally accepted numbers being used in news articles and by advocacy groups, etc.) Add in other plastic wraps and the number goes up to 380 billion.
Americans buy an estimated 50 billion plastic water bottles a year. And that’s just water bottles. Think about how much shit you buy that comes in a plastic bottle and isn’t water. There’s a lot more plastic in a water bottle than there is in a straw.
Look around at your life. Look at the shit you throw away every fucking day. The takeout containers and cutlery and cups and cans and bottles and packaging and all the miscellaneous other shit. Do Americans throw away a lot of straws? Yeah, probably. We throw away a lot of everything.
According to Seth Borenstein, an AP science writer who is, at least, not a 9-year-old child, “Straws make up about 4 percent of the plastic trash by piece, but far less by weight. Straws on average weigh so little – about one sixty-seventh of an ounce or .42 grams – that all those billions of straws add up to only about 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that yearly hits the waters.”
Yeah, we throw away a lot of straws. We also throw away a whole shitload of other stuff, and that other stuff adds up to exponentially more mass than straws.
Ok, you get it, there’s a lot of trash and straws are a relatively small portion of it.
But isn’t this whole anti-straw thing an important symbolic gesture that raises awareness of the problem?
Really, is it?
How many people do you know who were like, “Oh wow, this straw thing is a really good point and now that I’ve been enlightened about ocean trash, I will examine all of my other habits of consumption to decrease the amount of waste that I am generating on a daily basis.”
Did you yourself do that?
Or did you and everyone you know just go, “Yeah, straw ban, cool idea,” and pat yourself on the back because you can rest easy now, knowing that the next time you see a video on Facebook of someone yanking some plastic out of a turtle’s facehole, it’ll be some other miscellaneous bit of garbage plastic instead of a straw?
Don’t you care about the turtles, Kari?
Look, it’s not that I don’t care about the turtles. I like turtles as much as the next gal (though not as much as my husband, who really likes turtles).
I’m not anti-marine life. I want the turtles and the dolphins and the fish and the ungodly horrors of the deep to kill and eat each other as nature intended, not to die choking on plastic bullshit.
I also don’t want them to die because we’ve turned the ocean into a poisonous wasteland filled with raw sewage and chemical waste and oil spillages.
I also don’t want them to die because sewage and agricultural runoff has created massive “dead zones” where there’s no fucking oxygen and basically nothing can live.
Plastic trash in the ocean is a problem. I’m not denying that. But it’s not the only problem, and even if we all collectively agree to have an epiphany about plastic right now on behalf of the sea turtles, we’re still failing to address additional massive pollutant issues.
Do we have to fix everything all at once?
No, of course not. In this case, that’s pretty much impossible.
But we should try to actually fix something. And right now we’re not doing anything that matters. We’re getting rid of straws because it makes us feel like we’re doing something, and for most of us it’s an easy and meaningless sacrifice that doesn’t impact our lives in any important way.
Doing away with straws is the thoughts & prayers of environmentalism. It makes us feel like we did something good without having to put in any actual effort whatsoever.
Meanwhile, your precious turtles are still nomming plastic bags and sucking down toxic chemical waste and dying of humanity. And you’ve made life more difficult for many people with disabilities, because as I’m sure we’ve all heard by now, the straw ban is ableist AF.
How is it ableist? People who need a straw can still ask for one.
Ok, let me tell you about being personally affected by this straw nonsense.
For context: I’m an able-bodied adult woman and I am, generally, a pretty confident gives-no-fucks kind of person.
My husband and I stopped into an absolute cliché of a hipster coffee shop in Chicago a few weeks ago, where I ordered an iced latte. I was handed my latte in an open plastic cup. I spotted lids at the end of the counter, went to grab one, and looked around confusedly seeking a straw until I saw a sign on the counter informing me that this establishment was taking a stance against straws, but if I really wanted one, I could ask the barista for one.
We were planning to walk with our coffee a few streets over to a theatre where a friend of ours was holding a comedy showcase. I needed to drink my coffee, and I also didn’t want bugs in it or to spill it while I was walking.
But. I looked at the barista, who’d given me the classic I-hate-you-and-everything-around-me barista glare when I ordered, and, honestly, I was tired (hence the caffeine pit stop) and I just didn’t feel like getting judged for wanting to suck my coffee through a sea turtle death stick.
I complained to my husband, who in turn gave me the patiently-suffering-through-your-dementia stare and told me to just drink from the open cup. (I did and successfully did not spill on myself or acquire any insects during our walk. This is not the point of the story.)
The point of the story is that while I just wanted a straw for the sake of convenience and, yes, was easily able to go without it, the same is not true for everyone. The same forces that stopped me from getting a straw could as easily stop someone else who actually needs a straw from getting one.
If a person has a disability and needs a damn straw, should they have to subject themselves to the potential judgment of some barista or waitress or whoever in order to acquire it? Do you think people with invisible or nearly invisible disabilities don’t have to deal with this kind of shit enough already? Should we as a society should just unthinkingly put more hurdles up to make people’s daily lives more difficult? I know this is not an insurmountable problem. It’s not the end of the world to have to ask someone for help. But when you are tired or in pain or just have spent your whole day struggling over some multitude of difficulties, even a small roadblock can feel like a big one. Asking for help can feel like making yourself vulnerable. Maybe we shouldn’t expect people to feel like they have to give up their dignity in order to drink their damn iced coffee.
Why not bring your own reusable straw if it’s such a big deal to have to ask for one?
Yes, I could do that, sure. I’m not going to, because I have enough things on my keychain and in my purse already and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the kind of asshole who carries around a fucking titanium straw in a box or whatever, I don't care how many FinalStraw ads the internet shoves in my face.
If you mean to suggest that people with disabilities who need straws should carry such things around, well, yes, that might be a reasonable option for some. Of course, if a person needs a straw due to mobility issues, a reusable straw that needs to be disassembled and cleaned might not be much of a useful accommodation…
Ok, so what the fuck do you want me to do, Kari?
Honestly, I don’t much care what you personally choose to do. Do you want to forego straws because it makes you feel better? By all means, feel free.
What I want us as a society to do is stop putting the burden of change on consumers and acting like there it is, that’s the solution, now it’s just all up to the individual people to go ahead and implement it.
Yeah, that’s right, nearly 2,000 words into this bitch and I’m finally going to get to the capitalism thing.
The thing about this anti-straw shit is it puts the burden on the individual American consumer to solve a problem created by global industrial and waste management practices and corporate disregard for everything except money.
Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that a handful of Asian countries create more plastic marine pollution than the entire rest of the world combined? Do you know where all that plastic they’re dumping in the oceans comes from? Well, according to Greenpeace (I know, this is far from an unbiased source, but let’s be real, the question of where the plastic is coming from is practically just basic common sense), it’s coming from massive corporations, most of them Western, selling cheap consumer goods en masse to these developing countries.
It doesn’t matter if you and I and our six turtle-loving friends all stop using straws. It doesn’t matter if every person living in America right now stops using straws. America’s straws are a tiny blip in the vast ocean of consumer plastics being produced and thrown away all around the world every day.
Why do we humans use so much plastic? It’s cheap, it’s durable, it’s cheap, it’s lightweight, it’s cheap, it’s useful, and it’s cheap.
A capitalist society will basically always favor cheap and easy over pretty much anything else. That’s just how capitalism do. We’re all of us constantly scrabbling to earn as much money as possible and buy the things we need and want as cheaply as possible.
I assume you understand how capitalism works, but just so we’re all on the same page here:
A capitalist system, by its very nature, relies on an endless cycle of production and consumption in order to function. You make money by getting people to buy your stuff. In order to continue making money, you have to continue getting people to buy your stuff. That means continually producing new stuff that people might want, and/or it means producing single-use stuff so that people have to keep coming back to buy more.
And what’s the cheapest way to make a bunch of stuff? Hey, plastic is cheap! If you can cut your costs, you can sell your stuff for cheaper than your competitors, which means people are more likely to buy your stuff, and plastic helps cut costs. Also and/or alternately, if you can cut costs, you can increase your profit margin, to make more money off the stuff you’re selling.
What this means is that a capitalist system has no intrinsic motivation to produce less stuff or do it more sustainably – that would cut into profits, and the whole point of capitalism is to maximize profits.
And that’s why we the consumers have to demand change, right? We vote for the environment with our dollars.
I mean, sure, in theory.
But a lot of consumers are poor.
If you’re fighting to stay above the poverty line, or living beneath it, you’re probably not going to choose the sustainably-produced but more expensive product in biodegradable packaging. You’re taking the cheap shit wrapped in plastic, because you need to stretch your dollar as far as possible.
If you’re barely scraping by with enough to feed your family, properly recycling those plastic containers is fucking low on the list of shit you have the time and energy to worry about. That’s some basic hierarchy-of-needs shit that I hope I do not need to explain to you, reader.
There are a lot of people in the world. Only a very few of them are rich. Environmental stewardship is a luxury that many consumers straight up cannot afford.
And even for those of us who are reasonably well-to-do, there aren’t any other goddamn options. Everyfuckingthing is plastic. Because plastic is cheap and durable and cheap and lightweight and cheap and useful and cheap, and therefore manufacturers are going to keep manufacturing shit with it.
You want to not use straws? Fine. But look me in the eye and tell me you can reasonably cut all single-use plastic out of your life.
And you know what else? Cutting out all plastic isn’t even a particularly good solution. What are you going to replace it with? The environmental impact of producing similar quantities of paper packaging, for instance, would be massive and devastating.
Anyway, there’s a vicious cycle at work here. Plastic is cheap, so manufacturers use it because cheap is good for them; it’s cheap, so consumers buy it, because cheap is good for them; manufacturers keep making it because consumers keep buying it and consumers keep buying it because manufacturers keep making it. Profits are maximized, stuff is consumed, the rich get richer, everyone else keeps fighting over scraps, and as long as you can feel reasonably assured you’re going to die before the earth becomes uninhabitable, who cares? #capitalism
Meanwhile, we're polluting the oceans in a whole fuckload of other ways, too (sewage, chemicals, oil spills, noise, etc.). Why? For the sake of profit, in some cases, and in others just because it'd be too much trouble not to.
No one makes fistfuls of money by saving the planet, so what's the incentive to bother?
Unfettered capitalism will only ever fuck us all over in the end.
To be clear, I’m not saying that if we let the Bernie Bros have their way everything will be magically solved.
I’m saying that we as consumers can’t solve this on our own by giving up our straws and our plastic bags and whatever other small bits of bullshit we decide to wage war against. And I’m also saying that asking consumers to regulate the behavior of corporations massively displaces the responsibility for cleaning up this mess onto the people who are most unable to do fuckall about it.
Fuck banning straws. Fuck patting ourselves on the back and sitting on our laurels because we stopped a minuscule amount of plastic from going into the ocean.
Ban corporate greed. Dismantle the capitalist system. Eat the rich.
Too far?
Ok, fine. Vote, then. Elect a government that gives a shit and demand it put fetters on capitalism. There are people and corporations that have the power to make real meaningful changes for the environment – manufacturing regulations, investment in clean, renewable energy, comprehensive recycling programs, etc. Hold multi-billion dollar manufacturing corporations at least as accountable for doing their part as you and I.
And let me know if you decide you're ready for the revolution.
#capitalism#environmentalism#straws#straw ban#fuck your straw ban#sea turtles#revolution#eat the rich#hot takes that are no longer hot
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Solving Philadelphia’s Sports Talk Radio Problem
If you’re under the age of 50 and above the age of 15, it’s obvious that Philadelphia has a sports talk radio problem. This city is big enough for two separate stations to fill nearly 24-hours of original content every single day, so why do listeners have to restrain themselves from putting a boot through their radio after listening for an average of two minutes?
The answer isn’t an easy one, but I’d like to propose a potential four-step solution that I think will help improve sports talk radio in Philadelphia.
Step 1: Fill a room sky high in both the 97.5 Fanatic and 94 WIP studios with wheels of mozzarella, arms of salami, slabs of mortadella, Rocky Blu-rays, back issues of Playboy from 1984 and knock-off Chinese made Eagles jerseys.
Hang a sign from the door marked “Free.”
Step 2: Wait until room is filled. When at capacity, crack open door and throw in smoke bomb.
Step 3: Amidst confusion, send in army of interns with large burlap sacks. Stuff hosts into said sacks with notices of termination. Tag each host with tracking device to collect valuable data on the mating habits of the morbidly obese. Hire a forklift if interns alone cannot successfully remove hosts from their respective stations. Be prepared to widen doorways throughout each building. Unceremoniously dump fired, confused hosts in alleyway. Congratulate self on job well done.
Step 4: Hire new hosts.
Sure, it may seem harsh, but the unoriginality of the medium is so deeply entrenched in both stations that they need to be completely uprooted. They have such an incestuous relationship that it’s not a matter of “if” a fired host will find another job at the rival station, but only a matter of “when.” Rob Ellis. Anthony Gargano. Jon Marks. Tony Bruno. Mike Missanelli. All failed or otherwise flamed out at their respective stations…all found homes at the rival station.
Did Rob Ellis, the human equivalent of a deep coma, need TWO chances at TWO sports talk stations to put listeners to sleep? Did he really need a daily morning television show? I assure you his failures were NOT due to people being unable to see his weak-chinned face.
If someone’s tired schtick wasn’t getting ratings at WIP, it will CERTAINLY do better at The Fanatic! Anthony Gargano’s “cuz” act had worn out its welcome… uh, everywhere, so of course The Fanatic jumped at the opportunity to hire him to anchor its flagship morning show! At least they gave him a unique slant this time around with Brian Baldinger and human dynamo Maureen Crowley Williams. WHAT FRESH-FACED TALENT! The most interesting thing about Baldinger is his gnarled finger. Has anyone cared what he’s had to say in the past, oh, let’s make it a conservative 25 years? No. No they haven’t. But they’ll reinvent the morning show they will, one recycled bit after another. LET’S GO TO THE MEATLOCKER AND TALK TO FREDDIE MITCHELL FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME, WHAT A CRAZY MEATBALL! OH MAMA MIA.
(Just a side note for a moment, can each station please have a moratorium on booking Freddie Mitchell? He played four seasons, very poorly I might add, and he hasn’t stepped foot on a football field since 2004. Do we need to hear him complain about Donovan McNabb again? We do not. You were garbage, Freddie. It wasn’t McNabb’s fault that you washed out of the NFL. I do not need to hear another unsubstantiated story about how everyone on the team hated McNabb…which was probably true, but god damnit I don’t need to hear you tell it AD NAUSEAM.)
Wing Bowl was fun like 20 years ago, right? Tits, wings, huge slobs eating themselves into an early grave as greasy Angelo Cataldi cackles in the background and their soon-to-be widows beg them to stop, disappointed Wingette fathers…it’s a Philadelphia tradition! So what does The Fanatic do? Creates Fantasy Fest, an annual event that gives 35 mouthbreathers from Kensington the excuse to begin drinking at noon and ogle the one unlucky stripper from Delilah’s who is NOT getting paid enough to be there.
This caller to The Fanatic last weekend perfectly encapsulated the Fantasy Fest experience:
Caller: "Hey I just left Fantasy Fest."
Host: "Wasn't that the best party ever?!"
Caller: "I'm not going to lie, no." ::hangs up:
Perfect
— CogginToboggan (@CogginToboggan) August 26, 2017
I didn’t make that up. That was a real call. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed anything more that has been aired on The Fanatic.
The one host in the past decade who attempted to do anything different was Josh Innes, and he was ran out of town in his husky boy jeans faster than Pete Rose running to an alleged underage sex party.
Innes dared to step away from the tried and true Philadelphia sports talk formula of cliched topics and “hilarious” daily polls. You know the ones…. “Call in, we’re taking your top Philly guys who ever played linebacker for the Eagles…Jeremiah Trotter is up there for me, I tell ya. Call in, 610-632….”
For every one host or producer willing to try something different, there are 25 Jason Myrtetuses in the background rehashing and pushing the same old garbage. “How about a fake caller? He could call in when things are slow, really rile Mike up! Just make him black, don’t worry about it, we’ll call him Dwayne. He’ll be outrageous and say really stereotypical things that I think a black person would actually say if I knew any in real life. THINK OF THE RATINGS!”
In the words of the immortal Digital Underground, “It’s just the same old song.”
Here’s what one of the stations could actually do if they want to break the cycle: You know the person on your staff who is behind the scenes that has pitched an idea for a show that seems “out there” or “too different” from what you’re used to hearing on-air? Promote them to on-air. My god, do us all a favor. I beg of you.
Take a chance, get a different opinion on-air for a change. Do you really need to hear Mike Missanelli or Angelo Cataldi breathing heavily into a microphone every day and taking the contrarian view on EVERY SINGLE TOPIC because it “creates content?” Get a new voice on your airwaves, get someone who is going to take a chance, who will do something we haven’t heard a million times already, and who won’t publish terrible polls on Twitter. Spare us, please.
Or, better yet, listeners should just stop listening. Go ahead and put that foot through your radio and don’t replace it. Read the Coggin Toboggan and Crossing Broad instead. Fuck it. There are a ton of writers here now. Everyone here can mash their hands onto their keyboards and come up with semi-coherent sentences, I guarantee you that. WHAT AN ENDORSEMENT!
All angry emails and letter bombs from WIP and Fanatic hosts/producers should be addressed to Kyle Scott at Crossing Broad. He’s the one who allows this nonsense to be published on his site. [Editor’s note: Shaggy defense.]
Like what you saw? Did you only dry-heave once or twice reading this piece of garbage? Then follow me on Twitter @Coggintoboggan.
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Solving Philadelphia’s Sports Talk Radio Problem published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv
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