Switzerblog

Okay, so Tracy was curious about why Tuesday’s the toughest day of the week.  See, here’s the deal. It’s a proximity issue. You wake up Monday and you’re all ”OMG IMMA DO EVERYTHING THIS WEEK IS GONNA RAWK!!!”

I look like this. Sue me.

Then Tuesday comes and you have to get up, but you DIDN’T do everything. You’re tired, and you need a break. But Friday is FOREVER AWAY. You’re all “omg this is teh suck and i didn’t do all the things and friday is never”.

Oh noes. Friday is nevar.

Suddenly it’s Wednesday, and you’re like, “You know what I could do…I could go out for a drink. It’s a school night, but I could be naughty once.”

This ends badly.

Thursday is when you really learn your lesson. You feel like warmed over poop, but you know the weekend’s just a day away. If I can just survive this incredibly awful feeling…

Why did I do that to myself? OWMYHEAD

Friday!! Screw accomplishment, we’re just coasting until Saturday and we forget we have jobs!

Hell to the yeah!

In chart form, this is represented thusly:

But now we get to the real problems. Lily thinks I’m cheating on her with Tracy, but I was cheating on her with Suzanne, too. But maybe it was just my evil twin who’d hacked my account!  Either way, now I’m faced with the quandary of the dude who’s just been called out AND smacked down with a “I’m at happy hour with my real friends” hit. What to do? Solution? PIECHARTS!!

It’s important to understand that I respect all y’all too much to, technically, “cheat”. Per se.

See? It's pretty even, right?

But I’ve still got the problem of Lily’s apparent capacity for public shaming and, potentially, punishment.

Note the skew here. This is not good.

Solution: Learn my lesson!

Some people just deserve it.

That resolved, I must still say…Lily, Suzanne tweeted for me while she was on the air, and I have little choice but to honor my agreement with her.

Although I was hoping she'd say "booger"

I’ve tried to stay out of the “Ground Zero Mosque” thing, because it’s so obviously ginned up and nonsensical, but it’s quickly moving from ginned up nonsense to a legitimate issue that I believe only worsens our already tenuous relations with the Islamic world.

Reading this article, I was struck less by the opposition to a mosque being built – I’ve come to expect knee-jerk opposition from these folks – than on the sheer inability to hear and understand any view of Muslims that doesn’t involve terrorism.

Some opponents have cited traffic and parking concerns. But the objections have focused overwhelmingly on more intangible and volatile issues: fear of terrorism, distrust of Islam and a linkage of the two in opponents’ minds.

“Wouldn’t you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?” asked one woman who stood up Wednesday night during a civic association meeting on Staten Island to address representatives of a group that wants to convert a Roman Catholic convent into a mosque in the Midland Beach neighborhood.

“No,” began Ayman Hammous, president of the Staten Island branch of the group, the Muslim American Society — though the rest of his answer was drowned out by catcalls and boos from among the 400 people who packed the gymnasium of a community center.

Wow. The first paragraph is fairly obvious – sort of a “some people aren’t very smart” thing. And the ignorance of the question asked is upsetting but not terribly shocking (and easily shot down – I’d argue that the Christian Crusaders didn’t come out of a mosque, nor did, for example, Timothy McVeigh). What leaps out at me is the booing and catcalling drowning out an answer that doesn’t agree with the pre-determined conclusion. These people are not just ignorant, but made furious by any information that doesn’t agree with their ignorance. There is no possibility of coherent debate with them.

“I was on the phone this morning with the F.B.I., and all I want to know from you is why MAS is on the terrorist watch list,” said Joan Moriello, using the acronym for the Muslim American Society. Her question produced a loud, angry noise from the audience.

…

“Your information is incorrect, madam,” he replied. “We are not on any watch list.” The other men, Mohamed Sadeia and Abdel Hafid Djamil, shook their heads in agreement.

The State Department maintains a terrorist watch list for foreign organizations, and the Justice Department has identified domestic groups it considers unindicted co-conspirators in various terror-related prosecutions. The Muslim American Society is on neither of those lists.

Here we have someone simply making something up – probably assuming she was right because hey, all Muslims are on the terrorist watch list. (Consider, for a moment, the likelihood of a random woman from Staten Island calling the FBI and getting an update on who’s on the “terrorist watch list”) Nonetheless, the audience defaulted to believing her and became angry. This is not just ignorance, this is a willed group delusion.  They are designing a worldview for themselves to simplify a complex, confusing, not-easily-resolved issue. Doesn’t solve anything, but hey, at least they can just be angry and feel like they’re right!

Here’s a question from the audience that I liked: “Can you point to any single statement in the Koran that you would consider to be incorrect?” Let’s change the word “Koran” to “Bible”, and imagine the response. What’s that you say? The bible doesn’t teach violence, but the Koran does, so it’s not a fair comparison? Not so fast, buster.  Finally, let’s see how the patriotic crowd responded to a US military veteran taking a stand for his beliefs:

The tenor of the inquiry became so fraught that the meeting eventually collapsed in shouting around 11 p.m., prompting the police and security guards to ask everyone to leave.

But just 20 minutes earlier, as Bill Finnegan stood at the microphone, came the meeting’s single moment of hushed silence. Mr. Finnegan said he was a Marine lance corporal, home from Afghanistan, where he had worked as a mediator with warring tribes.

After the sustained standing ovation that followed his introduction, he turned to the Muslims on the panel: “My question to you is, will you work to form a cohesive bond with the people of this community?” The men said yes.

Then he turned to the crowd. “And will you work to form a cohesive bond with these people — your new neighbors?”

The crowd erupted in boos. “No!” someone shouted.

Knee-jerk jingoistic response to military service, knee-jerk anger to just the idea of working to better understand Muslims who already live in their city.

Jack Cafferty from CNN jumps on the anti-mosque bandwagon today, arguing that this isn’t about freedom of religion, it’s about insensitivity.

This is not about freedom of religion – no one is suggesting Muslims can’t practice their religion. This is about insensitivity to what happened on September 11 and an affront to this city and country. The murders of 3,000 people were committed by muslim extremists.

Did you catch that? In one short paragraph he suggests that Muslims are free to practice their religion AND manages to conflate Islam with the crazy zealots that used Islam as a precept to commit murder. Brings to mind this great cartoon by Ed Stein.  Jack closes his article by asking his readers to share what they believe is the “real reason” the Muslim community doesn’t want to relocate the community center. Because it couldn’t possibly be that they’ve already spent several million dollars purchasing the property and have every right to use it and not lose their money. I think it’s pretty clear that Jack believes this is an intentional attack against 9/11 victims.

Look. Freedom of religion is part of the issue – absolutely no doubt about this. Many of the people arguing against this community center (and mosques proposed in Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, California, and Kentucky) are indeed arguing that these people shouldn’t be allowed to practice Islam in our country while we’re at war with “terror”.  And fundamentally, the conflation of all brands of Islam with radical Islamic terrorists is the root of all the opposition, despite this being akin to conflating Methodists with the IRA.

But this goes much deeper. This is about a quickly growing anger at the idea of having to understand something outside oneself, and a grasping need to preserve ignorance at all costs. The people fighting this most vehemently are also the people most often quoting the founders and the constitution, yet arguing angrily to repeal portions of that same document. In the past 20 years, the right has cultivated a sneering disdain for education and knowledge, labeling an educated person who disagrees with them ‘elite’. But with the rise of the Tea Party and Palin brigades, that disdain has become open hostility bordering on rage.

No longer content to mock those who would debate with information gained through education, they now angrily bully and shout down any facts which don’t fit their opinions. And opinions, in their world, rule all. If they believe it to be true, it is true.

So a community center, in their world, cannot be built two blocks from Ground Zero, because terrorists will be trained there. In their world, the mosque already standing four blocks away simply doesn’t exist. The chapel which conducts Muslim prayers inside the Pentagon simply doesn’t exist.

Make no mistake, many Republican leaders know better and are cravenly using this issue for political gain, despite the obvious fallacy of their arguments. And some Democrats are caving because…well, that appears to be what they do, too often. But on the ground, the right is abandoning reason and replacing it with rage and ideologically-grounded ignorance. And that, my friends, is a scary proposition indeed.

Well…what aren’t they saying? Judicial fiat, judicial tyranny, outrageous, ignoring the “will of the people”, first salvo in a culture war, and on and on it goes. And whatever the hell this guy is saying – Nazi? Guillotine? – hard to sort it out. As usual, we’re hearing about the destruction of the American family, the “redefinition” of marriage, the threat to “our” children, and my favorite canard, that the religious liberty of those opposed to same sex marriage is somehow being taken away. 

A quick clue: The existence of something you’re opposed to does not mean your freedom to be opposed to it has been stolen.  I have the liberty to be deeply opposed to stupidity, but nonetheless, people have every right to freely be as stupid as they wish.

Anyhoo, let’s follow Judge Walker’s lead and take a look at some of the facts behind the decision, the fallout, and the future of this case.

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or, the worst year ever ™ comes to a close.

Okay, 2009 was the biggest sack of turds of a year I’ve ever had the displeasure of limping through.  Divorce (I know, I promised never to write about it again), money troubles, the loss of everything I hold dear (I know, I still have my parents and little sis, but let’s focus for a moment, okay?), job troubles…you name it, if it was bad, it seems to have happened.  I know, I know…people have had worse years.  I’m not disputing that.  But still.  Pretty shitty year, all ‘round.

BUT.  But.  With the bad, so must come the good, yes?  And there’s plenty to be happy about this year.  So what I’m going to do is give you guys a look at the good stuff that happened this year.

…

The end.

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Okay, you guys. This will be my only post – ever – about my divorce.  And I’m not going to spend much time talking about what led us to divorce. I will say that the genesis of this post is that today, as of 9:53am PDT, Mr. and Mrs. Switzer ceased to exist as a legal entity. 

As for what led us here – the end of love is a messy thing.  There are really no heroes, no martyrs, sometimes victims, but really, as the love dissolves, we do things to each other, fair and unfair.  What matters at the end of the day is that we look forward rather than back, learn the lessons, and make ourselves better for the experience.  Of course it’s hard, and of course we’re broken as a result.

Those breaks take time, effort and attention to heal. They lead to disordered thinking and bad decisions.  They change how we act and behave, and those changes can cost us more than the love we’ve lost…I lost my house, dog, car, every memento from my past, and nearly lost my job.  But the breaks do heal.  You begin to think like yourself again.  If you’re lucky, you have friends like I did, who took me by the shoulders, shook me around and told me to get it together – after they’d given me some time to grieve and get the crazy out of my system.  Sometimes they took me by the hand and made me do things I didn’t want to do, and sometimes they were wrong. 

Lost love often reminds me of phantom limb syndrome in a way – a year after removing it for the last time, I still reflexively check to make sure my wedding ring hasn’t fallen off whenever my hands get wet (this has caused some awkward moments in my gym’s jacuzzi).  25 years after the fact, when I hear “Electric Avenue”, I can still smell my high school girlfriend (and first love)’s perfume, and remember the feel of her jeans.  This doesn’t go away, and I don’t want it to.  When I check for a ring that isn’t there, it hurts now, but these phantom reminders, like my “Electric Avenue” quirk, become happy things with time.  My phantom ring will eventually fade, but there will always be triggers that remind me of 11 good years with Mrs. Switzer.

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Dead too young at 71. Carlin was eye-opening for me, with his take on culture, 7 dirty words, and one of my all-time favorite lines, suggesting that to piss off feminists all one needs to do is walk into the offices of NOW and say “which one of you cupcakes wants to come home, cook me a nice meal and give me a blowjob?”. Obviously it’s wrong on so many levels, but the visual on someone actually saying that has cracked me up for years!

And I’ve always appreciated his clear-eyed take on the ten commandments (which I got to see him deliver in person when he was just developing the bit and working off of notes). Apologies for the link, whoever transcribed it was an idiot, and I couldn’t find a better version – but it’s close enough to get the point.

Taken too soon. We’ll miss you, George.

I’ve taken my shots at Hillary lately, but this one popped in my head today as I was reading this article about the Reverend Wright “flap”.  In it, Washington “uncommitted” superdelegate Ed Cote (uncommitted in the sense that he hasn’t made his intention to vote for Hillary public – yet) is quoted suggesting:

The Wright firestorm is “worrisome because it’s created a lot of footage for people to make hit ads — ammunition for the Republicans.”

As the Clinton folks have turned over every rock to suggest that winning = losing and losing = electability and Obama can’t win despite every poll that says otherwise and common sense and basic math, they’ve often attacked him, then defended themselves with the “we’re worried because Republicans will use this against him” defense.  Let’s ignore the obvious concern-trolling and get to the underlying problem here…

What kind of pussies are these people?  Seriously, Republicans are going to throw the kitchen sink at Jesus if he runs as a Democrat.  Either Hillary or Obama are going to be “The Most Liberal Member of the Senate” and “Out of Touch With Americans” and “Out of the Mainstream”, and they’ll have lots of examples that they believe make their case.  So what? 

They’ll use Wright against Obama?  And you’re supposed to think they won’t use the Bosnia nonsense against Hillary?  They won’t use NAFTA, Bosnia, et al to show the American public that she’s dishonest?  They won’t nail her as a flip-flopper for her ever-shifting stance on Iraq?

Attention, Democratic pussies:  Republicans are going to call our candidates out of touch, out of the mainstream, tax and spend liberals who hate America and are traitors and are soft on crime/war/terror.  They do this not because it’s an attack or a campaign strategy, but because it’s their actual platform.  If you don’t know this going in, and aren’t prepared to stand up to it, please stay out of our elections.  You have neither the intelligence, foresight, nor balls to represent my Party. 

Thank you.

I’m running again (I’ve lost 21 switzerpounds since last October, baby!), so that’s good. I’m trying to build a base so I can start training, in September, for the Las Vegas Half-Marathon. Today was a banner day; put in 5.5 miles in a time that shall not be revealed because I’ve lost my youthful vigor and speed and it’s none of your business and why can’t you just be happy for me because I ran and I’m being healthy and stop looking at my belly, it’s getting smaller for God’s sake and it’s none of your business anyway. Now, using the kick-ass tool Map my Run, I can put my routes up here for your amusement! So I do:

Okay, I haven’t looked at the intertubes since 8:00 last night, so I’m making my prediction unsullied by third-hand breathless reports of BREAKING – PROBLEMS WITH POLLS IN PODUNK!!!!! or MASSIVE CROWDS IN PHILLY, OBAMA’S GOING TO WIN IN A ROUT!!! or any of that nonsense.  Here we go…

Switzer sez: HRC: 54.5, Obama 46.5.

There.  I predicted.

Meet Oscar the death cat.

My thanks to I can has cheezburger? .