You know what I'm really sick of? Explaining the thuddingly obvious to people determined not to listen. Here are a few thuddingly obvious thoughts about some of today's news stories.
If we must have priests at all, there is no good reason not to have female priests. There are dozens of incredibly stupid or irrelevant reasons - Jesus only lived with men, Paul was a misogynist, tradition, women are too silly for church etc. - but a big pile of nonreasons doesn't add up to a reason.
So an English prince is marrying a minor aristocrat with no discernible personality whatsoever - because it worked out so well last time. Nonevent.
The pope thinks male prostitutes should wear condoms. Evidently because he thinks HIV is spread mainly by male prostitutes, because he thinks it's a gay disease, because that suits the prejudices he's both pandering to and promoting. Like any politician, even if he does know the truth, his power relies on spreading lies. Lies, hate, and fear.
North and South Korea have a disputed border. South Korea set up a military base on an otherwise uninhabited island next to the border. Yesterday North Korea shelled it, then South Korea shelled an area of North Korea but won't say where. If you think this is about one country being in the right, you're not out of the first grade politically.
The machine which sees through clothes at airports can't detect explosives or drugs hidden inside the body. Squeezing passenger's external genitalia is likewise conspicuous invasion for the sake of appearances, but otherwise functionless.
If your aim is to kill as many people as possible including yourself with a bomb, stand in the middle of the queue waiting to be fondled at the airport, and set off the bomb in your luggage. A bigger bang, a bigger bodycount, bigger headlines, and far more disruption and political impact than you'd get smuggling a small hidden bomb onto a plane.
Where did the idea come from that everyone's entitled to their opinion? If you don't understand Newton's equations, you're not entitled to comment on them. If you only select historical facts which support what you'd have preferred to happen, you're not entitled to write history books.
I like discussing things with people. I enjoy learning new facts and aspects from experts - and when I do, I do the listening. What I do not enjoy is spending an hour walking someone through the ten seconds of elementary reasoning needed before you can begin a grown-up discussion.
Some of my coworkers said that they didn't find anything with the strip scanners and pat downs because it was done for safety. So I asked them what the would think if they had to preform cavity searches too in the name of safety. Now they drew the line at that. So what wrong with other people saying that line was already crossed?
ReplyDeleteWhy can't we get those scanners that the Swiss have? The ones that make people look like cartoon characters?
If people are going to image me naked, I'd appreciate a printout. I'm kinda interested what I look like in one of those things.
Where did the idea come from that everyone's entitled to their opinion?
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is ... I agree with Kapitano. You hit the nail squarely on the head, especially with the upcoming royal nupituals and the TSA patdowns.
I disagree....everyone IS entitled to their opinion and like the US 5th Amendment, they have the right to remain silent.
ReplyDeletemy wv: rable