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5:22 pm EDT 86°F (30°C) in Marietta, GA
Calendar of Updates |   One would think that a company's own drivers would at least show a little bit more respect for one of their company's terminals than for a truck stop (although frankly, it's infantile behavior no matter where they do it — I outgrew writing on the walls when I was about 3), so this display even more strongly shows how low the level of political discourse has gone. I mean, I had to take two pictures because the people responsible for this had covered such a large area on the stall wall — just to give you a feel for the area covered by this, those tiles you see to the right side of each picture are 6" x 6" (15.2 cm by 15.2 cm). What was perhaps even better — or even more sickening, depending on your perspective — is that when I went to use the same restroom a mere eight hours later, yet another driver had added his own words of wisdom to all of this. While I understand that many people are frustrated — and rightly so — with the actions of Bush's 43rd Reich and said 43rd Reich's total ignorance of the public's views, I am starting to wonder if trucking companies, shipper/receiver facilities, and truck stops shouldn't cavity-search all men and confiscate any writing utensils at the entrances to all of their men's restrooms. It's one thing to expect this in a restroom that serves thousands of people every day, but in a restroom that only sees 50-100 users per day (and furthermore, is owned and maintained by the company that employs 100% of said users) — come on, people, cut this crap out. Last night, I happened across yet another story of right-wing lunacy that I think is worthy of my mention here. An Oklahoma-based telecommunications company called UAT is promoting its services by bashing large telecoms such as Verizon for their non-discrimination policies that ensure full employment equality for gay and lesbian people. To quote from the ABC News article to which I linked, UAT representatives make claims like "[AT&T] gives millions of dollars to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance group [sic]" and "[Verizon] trains its employees to accept a gay and lesbian lifestyle." (Note: In regards to the claim about AT&T, UAT's people can't even get the name right — it is the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Then again, maybe that's an intentional mistake.) Perhaps the best part of that whole ABC News article is one of comedian Eugene Mirman's responses in the conversation he taped with a UAT rep. "Basically, God hates AT&T, MCI and Verizon," Mirman said, to which the UAT rep replied, "Yes." Is it just me, or can you hear the cuckoo birds screaming non-stop too? In more seriousness, though, I half wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea to force the so-called "Christian right" (which, in truth, is neither Christian nor right) to come up with its own providers of the services necessary for modern life. That is to say, in this example, the large national telecoms like Verizon and AT&T ought to just cut their lines that serve "fundamentalist" strongholds like Oklahoma, and force "fundamentalists" to develop their own alternatives. I can think of a few other examples: if "fundamentalists" want to bitch and moan about CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens for dispensing "morning-after pill" prescriptions, then these pharmacy chains should simply move out of the red states and leave for dead those "fundamentalists" who need Lipitor, Crestor, Zestril, or injectable insulin to survive. I mentioned Ford Motor Company's sexual-orientation-neutral policies recently in this section; if "fundamentalists" announce a "boycott" of Ford, I would (if I ran Ford) shutter all of my dealerships in the red states — and if all car companies that are committed to equality did likewise, roads in the red states would look like the streets of Havana in 20 years. (For those that don't know what I'm talking about, almost every car-owning Cuban citizen has a mid-1950s vehicle of some sort; this is the most obvious result of 45 years of the misguided American embargo against Cuba.) "Waaaaaah," 'fundamentalists' will cry, "that would be way too cruel!" It doesn't even begin to match the level of cruelty you numbskulls have displayed for decades against young girls, gay and lesbian (or questioning) teenagers and young adults, and non-"Christians." Your wails of pain and suffering will fall on deaf ears if you aim them at me. It may sound drastic, but these "fundamentalists" are never going to learn until we bring them to their knees and utterly humiliate them — and I believe we progressives ought to use our superior economic strength to bring about the end of "fundamentalist" lunacy. My stomach is grumbling at me, so it's time to go find something for dinner. |
