Too Pretty to Work

I saw something on the news this morning that has me thoroughly disgusted. I don’t know all of it but a man was attracted to his ‘irresistible’ employee. At the advice of his jealous wife and pastor, he fired her. The state of Iowa said “Right on.”

There had been some texting but apparently it was all innocent. In small offices this is fairly normal. It’s how you say if there’s a power failure or ask about a patient since hygienists and nurses do the nitty-gritty. If he had a problem with that, he should have asked his wife to be the go-between. I’m sure the twit would have been happy to keep tabs on her.

The boss said it was in the best interest of his marriage. Fun fact: your employee doesn’t give a shit about your marriage if it’s the reason she just lost her income. If his wife has a problem with him being attracted to his staff then she should do the hiring.

Her employer was worried about keeping it in his pants. Did it ever occur to you maybe your employee didn’t want to bang her married boss? He can’t get rid of every beautiful woman on the street so how does he handle himself in public? Is he like a dog that humps your leg? If you can’t be around women that are sexually viable, how does he handle female patients? Does he only treat ugly women and men?

I think the wife is insecure and pathetic. If your marriage is that tenuous, why are you fighting for it? Everyone will face temptations outside of the relationship they’re in. You can’t get rid of all of them. If you’re that worried he’s going to cheat, he probably will but it will be in a situation you can’t control. Maybe he already has.

The dental assistant took him to court for wrongful termination and lost. This sets a dangerous legal precedent. Employers can now discriminate based on looks whether they mean it or not. Now a female employer can fire underlings for being too rough on the eyes. Maybe a lawyer will fire his secretary for not being pretty enough. If the boss wants to fire you for petty, personal reasons, now it can be because of your looks.

People discriminate based on looks all the time. Most of us aren’t stupid enough to openly admit it. In Iowa, you can do it, be a douche about it, and get away with it.

Film at 11 3/3

In part three of my thoughts on the Sandy Hook massacre, I take on the media. It’s a popular scapegoat and fuel for the fire. 

‘Movies and video games made me violent’ is one of the most pathetic excuses for committing a crime I’ve ever heard. It’s like blaming McDonald’s for making you fat. Unless someone pulled a Se7en and made you stuff your face, it’s your own damn fault. No character from Grand Theft Auto jumped out of the game and made you shoot the owner of the 7-11 you robbed.

TV, movies, and video games are not directly responsible for violent crimes or violent people. The culture surrounding them, however, is questionable.

Did you know in order for a movie to have a PG-13 rating, it cannot show realistic depictions of gunshot wounds? If you want to show an accurate amount of blood, guts, and gore, it’s an automatic R rating. I think that is an astonishingly backwards system. It desensitizes kids to violence and its consequences. 

Another fun fact about the movies is that the number of thrusts in a sex scene in some sappy love story will contribute to the NC-17 versus R rating. And oral sex on a woman? No matter how romantic, it’s not appropriate for a wide audience. Seppuku in a murder for morality tale is less likely to get you an NC-17 than a realistic sex scene in a love story. That’s fucked up.

What is a more natural part of being human? Killing for sport or two people consummating their love? According to a board of censors, sex is more damaging to teenagers probably already having it than shooting ‘em up.

I’m not a gamer but if I picked the top 10 selling games of 2012, how many require violence to play? How many have more violence than story? How many parents ignore the ratings on the games? How many clerks selling them? Video games are an international pastime that consume hundreds of hours of people’s lives. If you see and do something often virtually, how long until it has an impact on you actually?

Violence is becoming a primary form of entertainment in this country. How many gun massacres happened in the age of musicals? Michael Moore said that in his movie Roger & Me he showed a man getting shot and a woman killing and skinning a rabbit. People reacted more strongly to the death of the rabbit. 

I watched this movie for a film class and realized he was absolutely right. No one, myself included, so much as blinked when the man got shot. It was nothing we hadn’t seen a hundred times over somewhere else. Watching the skinning of the rabbit, the whole class moaned, groaned, and flinched. It was not something we saw too much of. Again, what’s a more natural part of being human? Killing and skinning game or shooting another person?

The news media is no better. A quote erroneously attributed to Morgan Freeman says that people need to remember the names of the instead of the killer. If the media stopped treating these shooters as pseudo-celebrities, maybe we’d get luck and the next one will just off himself rather than taking a dozen people with him. I don’t know who said it originally, but it’s a great point.

Most people can name the Aurora movie theater shooter but how many people can name his victims? The shooter’s name was all over news broadcast for weeks but how many times in those stories did you actually hear the victim’s names? Without Google, how many victims from Aurora, Sandy Hook, and/or Virginia Tech can you name? I couldn’t get out of single digits.

How many of these sick bastards wanted their 15 minutes? What would happen if shooters like this stopped being household names? These men are not rock stars. They are mass murderers. Their names do not deserve public remembrance. The media and the people need to stop giving it to them. It may not solve everything but it will certainly stop a few people.

Creating a culture of violence happens when small things add up to big things. We can’t undo it all at once but small changes can hopefully lead to big changes. I’m starting be refusing to remember the name of the man who slaughtered children. Instead, I’m going to remember Victoria Soto. I wish more people were like her.

Current Jams: Dirty Laundry by Lisa Presley 

Aim for the Head 2/3

The second installment of my take on the tragedy at Sandy Hook is about mental health. First off, I’m truly worried for anyone with Asperger’s syndrome. Because the media has repeatedly said the shooter had it but nothing about what it is, it screams trouble for anyone who publically has it.

I’m no expert but autism has to do with brain function and social behavior. They have difficulty with empathy and think differently but are not inherently violent. A lot of time it manifests as cluelessness. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory is a good example. Holmes even admits to Sherlock (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) having it. Temple Grandin is autistic and has written books about her autism and how it helps in her work with animals.

Asperger’s syndrome is not what made the Sandy Hook shooter do this. I’ve know several people with that diagnosis none of whom are violent. Anytime I’ve heard about an autistic person having a violent outburst, they don’t reach for the gun. They just try and beat the tar out of you. There was something else wrong with him. Whether it was psychosis, a borderline personality disorder, or just a dose of bat shit crazy may never be determined.

If the shooter was legitimately autistic (I’ve been hearing some debate), he should have had a certain level of care or a social worker of some sort to help him. Someone somewhere should have seen the something else that was wrong with him. Some of the people who personally knew the family said they were ‘troubled.’ There is so much I don’t know about the situation but if the neighbors suspected he might do something like this, what could they have done?

The cops cannot arrest someone without probable cause. They can’t haul him in and search the place without risking a PR nightmare. Our legal system has adopted a system of ‘do nothing until they do something’ for dealing with potential violent offenders. That system is ineffective and broken.

Both spree killers like Aurora and Sandy Hook along with violent partners get away with far more than they ever should because there is no middle ground between ‘he’s not quite right’ and ‘oh shit he really is dangerous.’ I bring domestic violence into this because those offenders can be just as violent but they have a specific target. Many times innocent people are killed as a result of the nothing authorities are allowed to do beforehand.

Creating a middle ground can be very dicey with regard to civil liberties but clearly the current system of ‘wait for it’ works too late. The Sandy Hook shooter was the result of America’s famous sickcare and authorities with limited options to act. Both systems need to stop with the ‘all or nothing’ model. I don’t know what the middle ground is but I know more innocent people are alive there.

Current Music: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These) by Emily Browning

No Shoes, No Service

I heard an interesting debate on the Kane Show this morning. A listener wrote in because he went to visit his friend who just had a new baby. The house had a no-shoes rule so he left his $275 shoes at the door. When he went to leave at the end of the night the dog had chewed them. His friends are refusing to pay for a new pair. He thinks they should. Who’s right?

This is 100% on the homeowners. If they can’t afford the full $275, they should offer some financial compensation. It is their house, their rule, and their badly trained dog. Refusing to pay for what amount to their screw-up only adds insult to injury. (Freudian slip: I originally typed ass instead of add the first time which is what these people are being.)

What adds to the faux pas is that the homeowners know if their dog is a chewer. If it’s a puppy, everything is a chew toy. You should know better. If your adult dog still chews, you’ve lost enough shoes to know better. If they insist on a no-shoes policy and they have a shoe-loving dog, they need to have a safe location for guests’ shoes. If they can’t do that, they either need to rewrite the rule or stop having guests.

I’ve owned three dogs in my life none of whom had any interest in shoes. I also don’t believe in a blanket no-shoes rule. If your shoes are dirty or muddy or you stepped in crap then leave them at the door. If you want to leave them at the door, go ahead. Otherwise wipe ‘em on the mat and come on in.

I have a friend who insists everyone who enters her apartment must remove their shoes and wash their hands. If you have a new baby or the guest is or recently was ill that makes sense but for a single twenty-something, it’s a little much to ask of every guest you ever have. At least this friend will offer one-size-fits-her slippers (a moot point for large footed people but a nice gesture).

If those are the rules and it’s not my house, I will (begrudgingly) abide by them. If those rules cause harm to the property I had to leave at the door, that’s on you. If you disagree then I probably don’t need to swing by any time soon.

Current Music: Figure 8 by Ellie Goulding

Shoot from the Hip 1/3

Unless you’ve been pulling a Unabomber, you are well aware of the tragedy that occurred in Connecticut. It is heartbreaking and devastating that something like that could happen. However, if an event that horrific were ever going to take place, it would have been in America. Rather than do one super-long blog, I’m breaking it up into three parts: gun control, poor mental healthcare, and the role of the media.

It hadn’t even been a full 24 hours before debates about gun control popped up all over the internet. The inclusion of poor mental health care followed soon after. The shooter obtained his weapons from a family member’s home. The only reason he didn’t purchase his own was because he had the wrong paperwork.

After the sick son of a bitch used an assault rifle to mow down teachers and children, people flocked to gun stores to arm themselves. This is absolutely part of the damn problem!

Having a gun in either situation wouldn’t have saved lives. It would have gotten more innocent bystanders killed by untrained individuals who wanted to play hero. Unless you’ve got a 100% accuracy rate with a concealed and carry (which most law enforcement can’t tout) you are no match for an assault rifle. You’ll just get more people killed.

Australia had a horrific gun massacre in the 1990s and immediately enacted stricter gun laws. It hasn’t happened since.

Americans didn’t do much of anything after Columbine to regulate and control gun sales. Since then we’ve had Virginia Tech, the Aurora Movie Theater, the Oregon mall, and now Sandy Hook. And that’s just off the top of my head. Feel free to add ones that I missed.

I have said this to gun owning friends of mine and they all agree with me. Guns should be as regulated as driver’s licenses. You must take and pass a mandatory gun owner’s education class before you can legally own a firearm. Different guns would require different permits and assault rifles (which no civilian can ever justify) would require a special security clearance. In order to sell from owner to owner, you must present your firearms license. All guns owned must be registered and registration must be kept up to date every X years. Failure to do so will result in a fine.

If you own firearms and don’t keep them in a safe, lockbox, or locked display cabinet, you deserve to be shot by your own weapon. If you can’t store them properly, you shouldn’t have them at all. If you don’t properly clean and care for them, you deserve a painful misfire.

I have no respect or tolerance for irresponsible gun owners. NRA members who know what they’re doing and know their limits are better than the guy who knows nothing but buys a .22 for ‘home protection.’ Most of my gun owning friends knows that starting a firefight with an armed maniac is a Darwin Award level of stupid. Whether everyone remembers that in an emergency is another disaster waiting to happen.

I find killing people with guns cowardly. It’s distant and it’s easy. If you think you’re ‘bad’ enough to murder somebody, you should do it so you can see the consequences of your actions up close and personal. I find nothing heroic about murdering someone with a knife or sword but it’s less cowardly than doing it from 100 feet away.

The NRA nutbags have already started to come out of the woodwork insisting that any and all gun control is unconstitutional. How deep in denial do you have to be not to see the statistics, the devastated families, and the river of blood running through this country? If you say “You can pry me gun from my cold dead hands” I say snack on a bullet because being deaf, dumb, and blind to what’s happening is getting more and more people killed every day.

Current Music: The Howling by Within Temptation

If Only

People who say “I only read ___” worry me.

It doesn’t matter what the blank is filled with: fiction from the New Yorker, YA novels, nonfiction, New York Times bestsellers. Any blanket statement regarding reading materials concerns me.

I met a woman who said she only read YA books. I think YA books are dreadfully undersold as adult reading material. They contain fresh voices and a variety of new and interesting ideas, especially in genre fiction. David Levithan is considered a YA writer because most of his books are about teenagers. When he spoke at the last National Book Festival he made that distinction clear. The Lover’s Dictionary is his first book about adults but it is incredibly readable and beautiful. The woman I met will probably never experience it.

I’ve met people who only read ‘literature.’ I understand the desire for quality writing, storytelling, introspection, etc. but some days I want to read something fun. It’s like having the perfect FDA, personal trainer approved diet. Sometimes life needs a little cake. Just because it wasn’t nominated for a National Book Award doesn’t mean it’s not good.

I heard someone else say they didn’t read anything that was written after WWII. How do you know if contemporary novels aren’t good if you never read any of them? That woman would probably do well to join a book club with some of the ‘literature’ folks.

I have a friend who told me that she’s not much of a fiction person. I respected her stance so much more because while she prefers nonfiction, she would try a novel if it appealed to her (or, I suspect, if the rest of us hyped it enough).

I will never lecture anyone who ‘only reads ___’ but it will shape my opinion of them. It’s heartbreakingly limiting. Life is so much more interesting when you let yourself explore.

If you try something new and you hate it, walk away. Don’t write off the entire genre but choose carefully next time. Every genre has something for everyone.

Current Music: Fingerprints by Katy Perry