Libertarians

Fuck I hate libertarians. Just fuckin' hate them. I used to not feel this way. My thoughts about Libertarians used to be "well, it's better than being a Republican". But over the years I've come to the conclusion that a Libertarian is nothing more than a Republican who likes to smoke weed, or worse, a Republican who did waaaaay too much acid in college. Sure, they pull you in to their spell with their talk of being against the anti-gay marriage amendment, for legalizing drugs, and generally letting people do whatever kinky things they want to do in the privacy of their homes. But as you start to peel away at the outside to reveal the moral core you see there is something much more sinister going on. You start to see it has a heck of a lot more to do with unregulated capitalism than it does with individual rights. These idiots believe that if the market wants it then the market should get it, not matter what the effect it may have on society. They don't believe in the minimum wage, if someone wants to only pay 35 cents/hour for a job and someone will take that job then it's all good in their mind. Along with their soul mates the Republicans, they make silly arguments about the minimum wage causing jobs to go away even though that has never happened in the past. We're talking about a law that had a drastic effect on cutting the poverty level in this country but oh no, we can't have that, it's not the free market. And don't even suggest to these free marketeers that maybe it's a good idea to have gas mileage regulation. Los Angeles could be down to a visibility of zero from all the smog and these guys will still be saying shit like "if someone wants to buy a car that gets half a mile to the gallon, then they should be able to buy one." I swear it wouldn't stop there with these morons. At their best, these Libertarians would believe it OK if someone wanted to buy plutonium for personal use. At their worst, they believe if someone has the money to buy nuclear warheads, well then hey, let them have nukes. It's their money right? And those old growth trees in the national forests are just sitting there doing nothing when they could be making somebody a buck.

Social Security? Evil Socialism.
Public education? Can't have that.
Environmentalism? Only if it makes a profit.

Want to make a Libertarian shudder? Just walk up to one and say "public transportation." He/she may go in to convulsions.

I'm not saying you should be afraid of them. I enjoy Penn and Teller as much as anybody, and that guy that played Chainsaw in the Summer School movie (and was in Sleep With Me) is one of my favorite unknown actors. They are certainly a lot more fun to hang around than the Rick Santorum type Republicans. But don't believe their hype. It's all good to share the bong with them and munch on Fritos and have kinky weird sex if that's your thing, but remember that these people think Indonesian children working in Nike sweatshops and making Phil Knight lots of money is good for the world.

They don't care about the ends, as long as the means are capitalism.

Fuck that.

Bud's Reply

Sorry for the long absence everyone. I have no good excuse.

So get this. You remember the open letter to Bud Selig that I wrote? Well, I actually printed it out and sent it to him, as well as emailed to a few newspapers, none of which printed it (pricks). Well guess what? Bud responded. I kid you not. This is what he wrote:

September 16, 2005

Ms. (name witheld)

Dear Ms. (name),

Thank you for your letter of September 3, 2005. Even though the tone of your letter is both disappointing and inaccurate, I will answer you anyway.

The fact of the matter is that I think baseball has been extraordinarily sensitive to the recent tragedy. We have not only raised a lot of money, but we have sent a lot of supplies to that area. We have also cut public service announcements to help raise money. I am sure you will note with interest that the National Football league nor anyone else has stopped playing games. I don't believe anything would have been gained by that, and in fact, I watched some of the people who were dislocated who watched the New Orleans Saints game on television and said it was a great thing they were able to continue to watch sports. Your observations about my commissionership are interesting. You are entitled to your opinion, despite the fact that baseball is having its greatest year with record revenues and creating excitement like it hasn't done in many years. People now refer to this era as the golden era, so your observations are both ludicrous and unfortunate. To question baseball's sincerity and sensitivity is really inappropriate.

Sincerely,

Allan H. Selig, commissioner of Baseball

Now I realize I spell my name in a weird way, but he assumed I was female, which is funny because I thought my rudeness and mockery of him came across as very male. I should have cursed more. I guess I need to sign my letters "Mr. (my name)" from now on. But the best part of this is his "the NFL isn't doing it either" defense of what I wrote to him, and ignoring my question why he stopped games for the World Trade Center attacks but not for New Orleans. If it is such a great thing for people to still be able to watch sports after a tragedy why did he stop for six days after September 11, 2001? But the best is his defense of his commissioner. Selig has always been defensive when people criticize the crappy job he's done, but I had no idea he would get that way when jabbed by someone completely inconsequential(me). So that gave me a wonderful laugh. I would love him to name me one person who calls this the "golden era" of baseball. I can't believe he really believes that. Stuff doesn't get called the golden era of anything while it's going on, that happens like 20 years later when people are nostalgic. I can't believe there is anyone besides MLB's marketing department who refers to this season as the golden age. And how can someone's tone be inaccurate?

I may not have accomplished much with my little letter, but at least I got a rise out of Bud Selig. So that's cool. I'll probably write him again.

Bad News Day

I open up my Sunday paper and I see this:

Cheney OK after surgery to repair aneurysms

Dammit.

I Got Nothin'

No, really.

Can't think of anything to write about right now.

All week I've been planning to write a treatise on the virtue of hate, but I haven't been able to quite get it yet.

Also hopefully coming soon: Reasons why Libertarians suck ass.

All ideas and no execution right now.

Blech.

Alas, Poor Weather Man

Have you seen this dumbass Chad Myers on CNN? He's the weather guy I'm forced to put up with while watching the around the clock Hurricane coverage on the news. I know I know, I bitch about people on CNN all the time yet I continue to watch. But when you flip the channel and your other choices are Rita Cosby on MSNBC, whose voice can best be described as sounding like Tiny Tim with laryngitis, or FOX, where they're figuring out ways to blame the hurricane on the Welfare State and gay abortionists, CNN turns out to be the least annoying place to get your news. I do wish they'd fire most of the reporters, except for Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Christiane Amanpour. Maybe Anderson Cooper too, but only if he stops saying "Here at 360 we show both sides and let you decide" every five minutes. The rest of them have to go. Did you see Larry King ask Celine Dion to sing a song while she bawling?

This Myers guy is a real piece of work lately. Normally a TV weather guy wouldn't bother me. They're basically just stupid lazy people who fell into a sweet gig that requires very little work or brain function, and I can respect that. But this guy has issues. He gets snippy with the other anchors when they ask what something he just said in weather guy lingo means, which is just weird to see. Seriously, all one of them asked was what he means when he says the hurricane is getting "airy" and he loses it. And he seems to get pissed off about names of hurricanes. Ever since the latest one, Ophelia, has popped up he has just been snide and pissy. First I heard him say something like, "where the heck do they get these names?", and then "Ophelia, how's that for a name?!". Eventually, he starts spelling it every time he talks about it, which prompts miles O'Brien to ask "Hey Chad, why do you keep spelling Ophelia every time you say it?", and you can tell he's making fun of Chad at this point. Chad's reply was testy as hell and actually said "because it's so weird, whoever heard of..." and O'Brien kind of did the "OK, OK Chad.." thing.

So Chad thinks Ophelia is an odd, nobody ever heard of it kind of name.

Memo to CNN: Please buy Chad Myers a copy of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. If Elizabethan drama is not his thing, then at least get him a copy of the Indigo Girls' fifth album. His brain seems to be hurting.

An Open Letter To Bud Selig

September 3, 2005

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10167

Dear Mr. Selig,

I write to you today as a baseball fan and an American citizen. In the aftermath of the attacks on our country on September 11, 2001, as commissioner of baseball you made a difficult and important decision. You shut down the game. No baseball was played for five full days. You stopped the game out of respect for the dead, to give the country a period of mourning. It didn't seem appropriate to play a game in the face of such tragedy. You called your friend, President Bush, and told him that baseball would do whatever he wanted and you would follow his lead. Whatever he needed, you would do. Shea Stadium in Queens was used as a staging ground for relief efforts at the World Trade Center, and many players, managers, coaches, and baseball employees were involved in aiding those efforts. At the time you made remarks about how there are things in the world more important than playing a baseball game, and that the country had more pressing things to focus on at that time. It was, in many people's opinion, a shining moment for America's Pastime.

I have watched my television, in horror and sadness, for the past six days as the city of New Orleans sits underwater and tens of thousands of survivors struggle to survive. Many of them have already lost that battle and many more will in the coming hours and days. The situation is so dire that there is still no way of knowing how many lives have been lost. Many officials have publicly expressed that they expect the number of dead to exceed 10,000, over three times the number that perished in Manhattan on that horrible day four years ago.

My question to you is a simple one. Where is Baseball now? Have you called your friend Mr. Bush and made the same offer as you did in 2001? Have you even considered that it might be in bad taste to continue to play the game while still in the middle of the largest disaster to hit our country? Have you called the governor of Texas and offered Minute Maid Park, a retractable roof stadium in Houston, as another shelter to place refugees from Louisiana. Last night, as many people sat in the parking lot of the now full Astrodome waiting for rides to other shelters in the state, baseball fans were cheering an Astros victory over the Athletics just a couple of miles away. The sheer number of refugees coming out of New Orleans has created a shelter problem America has not seen in its history, which is why sports stadiums are being used. Major League Baseball has several domed or retractable-roof stadiums all around the country, including one in your home town of Milwaukee. Have you made any offer to stop playing the game and allow, or even order, the use of these sites as refugee shelters? If not, why? I know that none of the citizens in the Gulf region of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are season ticket holders like many of the people who perished in New York. But is there no place in your heart that will consider helping them? The million dollars MLB donated to the relief effort I'm sure is appreciated by the Red Cross and is a good PR move for you, but have you given any thought at all to finding out if there is more you can do? Is there any thought in your mind about the effect of this tragedy beyond the impact it might have on playoff ratings or the cost of jet fuel for the team charters? When this tragedy hit, was your first thought "Those poor people," or was it "Thank God we don't have a team in New Orleans, that would have been a major headache"?

I can understand, since you are widely considered to be the biggest failure to ever hold the title, that you are no longer concerned with your legacy as Commissioner of Major League Baseball. But what about your legacy as a human being and an American?

Yours sincerely,

Out Of Tune
Boston, MA