Apropos of Nothing

Living footnote Joe the Plumber has returned to tell the parents of the recent shooting victims that “your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.” It takes a special brand of asshole to say that to grieving parents. He didn’t even try to write a sane commentary or frame Second Amendment rights as the greater good of the public; it was his rights. Please, Joe, tell us more about how the massacre of other people affects you. There is a right and wrong way to argue for the ability to bear arms and if you essentially tell a grieving parent “Sorry your kids died, but …” you might want to check to see if your heart and/or tact still exist because adding that unspoken “but” indicates that neither does.

I was never comfortable with using “disrespect” as a verb. It seems like more of a noun (my dictionary lists it only as a noun or adverb). When I hear people use disrespect as a verb, I will always think of some hotheaded trash screaming on a reality show about how someone disrespected them and these people usually seem like they are getting the precise level of respect they deserve.

Weather.com is getting pretty dark lately — and I’m not talking about storm clouds. I keep seeing these awful links on the site to teens who died in horrible accidents and things like that. I don’t think they’re weather related so why are they on there?

I was reading a book on new wave and discovered that Spandau Ballet is named for what the Nazis called Jewish prisoners as their dying bodies were twisting around while hanging in the Spandau prison. That’s horrifying! I had never heard that before. Until people complained, the band didn’t know about the Nazi thing but just liked the name of the Spandau region. Now I’ll never listen to the gentle tones of “True” without feeling a little queasy.

Awhile back some town was ready to drain an entire reservoir because someone peed in it. This would have been a horrible waste of water. I know, I know, it was contaminated. But spread over a massive amount of water, it would have dispersed so much that it wouldn’t matter. Yes, I’d still drink out of it. It’s not like everyone would turn on their tap and get a steaming glass of piss.