What's the last thing that made you angry?

[Ra-ra]

I didn't use the search function.

I thought this might wake a few people up as it's quite satisfying to rant about things...

(Although maybe this is asking for trouble... but...)


While discussing an interesting film I'd seen last summer "In Darkness" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1417075/ with a then* friend of mine, who I thought was a perfectly nice and normal guy, he then proceeded to tell me that certain aspects of the holocaust may have been exaggerated and suggested that perhaps those involved in a number of the atrocities were volunteers. Really..... He then proceeded to tell me that althought not a "denier" he was just open to arguements from either side...


* he quickly became someone I tried to avoid and promptly failed to - due to him turning up at my doorstep at very unsociable hours of the night, sending flowers, leaving cakes on my doorstep and sending me 20 emails a day and my needing the police to get involved... but anyhow...


Thankfully I don't meet many people like this...

[fatwoul]

Oh that guy. Hope you've managed to keep him at bay since.

Very little makes me properly angry, but the last thing that irritated me was discovering my dehumidifier has developed a fault five days after the 12 month warranty expired.

[modiFIed]

I don't know about angry, but Ra-ra has touched on a feature of 21st century life that has frustrated me lately. I consider these the twin evils of modern discourse, and especially in the U.S. they are causing reasoned debate to grind to a halt.


The first is this simplistic pseudo-journalistic notion that there must be two legitimate "sides" to every single story, and the claims of each side are equally 'valid'. It's most visible in the U.S. today regarding our psycho gun lobby, which won't be happy until every child in America is riddled with bullets.


In the wake of our most recent tragedy (as of this writing at least - at Newtown), you'd think a person could simply state outright that we have a problem in this country in the form of uncontrolled, unlimited access to military-style weaponry. But you'd be wrong, because in every article where someone is proposing sensible reforms, the journalist will include a quote from some NRA whacko or in-the-pocket Congressman to the effect that, by golly, no we don't have any problems due to the 300 million guns floating around the country, or with 30-round magazines and thousands of rounds of ammo available by anonymous mail order to every Joker-faced orange-haired nut job with a fame complex.


The real problem, you see, is video games. And the only real solution is more armed people in the schools.


There you go - fair and balanced reporting. Except every sane person knows the only reason the NRA is getting this nod from political leaders and the press is because they have numbers. Numbers who vote and who threaten and who boycott. So their version of the "truth" must be aired, even if it's obviously not at all true and irrelevant to the actual facts being considered.


This makes the whole notion of "reporting" - versus simply interviewing people with various agendas - very open for question. Global warming? Hey, there are 0.02% of climate scientists who aren't so sure, so...maybe you can keep the Hummer. Evolution? You know, Creationism is also a legitimate scientific theory, so let's teach that as an "option" for the kids to consider because "the jury's still out" on evolution (that quote from George W. Bush). Except that only a few fringe scientists cling to the flimsy threads of Creationism, and that, I would guess, only because it gets them undue attention - and funds, and a false sense of professional legitimacy - from the Christian lobby. Every field will have its cranks. Should they have a voice equal to the mainstream version of reality that emerges from decades of peer-reviewed scientific study subjected to the continuous refinements of the best minds engaged in the discipline?


Care must be taken, of course, not to "silence dissent" via monolithic institutions who say "we know better". But I'm not talking about legitimate dissent or evidence discovered that contradict the status quo, I'm talking about obvious subterfuge and evasion a la the NRA, and claims contrary to known scientific consensus presented by non-authoritative partisan "think tanks" with an agenda that is in opposition to what the facts are actually showing (I'm looking at you, Heritage Foundation and big oil). Am I saying there should be some anointed arbiter of truth to intervene in these pseudo-debates, some super authority who could shut down the arguments by calling out the liars, evaders, and all-around weirdos? Actually, yes, but of course no single person weilds this much authority, nor should they. It's weilded by "scientific consensus", and it's the closest thing to "known facts" that we can have in a debate.


But science is timid and shy in the face of all the nut jobs clamoring for a voice in the media's continuous, cacophonous cavalcade of camera-ready clowns. So science retracts into itself, becomes insular, and only if we listen very carefully - as with Horton and his Who - do we hear the tiny voice of reason amid this noise. And only if we recognize reason for what it is do we act in a way that helps. (Hint - it's not some errant piece of data we cling to in order to bolster our pre-conceived notions of what's good and what's bad - a single cold winter does not negate the decades-long trend of global warming.)


Only in this perverse environment could philosophies like "anti-intellectualism" and "anti-environmentalism" thrive. These belief systems are ridiculous by definition, but their adherents are given credence in the "fair" press because they represent a "constituency".


The second problem, related to and resulting from this "two sides to every story" track, has to do with the huge number of so-called "news" outlets in the world today, of various qualities, and the instantaneous dissemination of every possible interpretation of "events" as they occur. This has given rise to the "echo chambers", or closed networks of "news" and "analysis" that one can confine oneself to in order to learn only the "facts" - and hear interpretations of those "facts" - that already fit one's political philosophy.


So for Ra-ra's Holocaust denier, there is a ready-made "world" of "truth" on the Internet that supports his beliefs. He can stick to that, and ignore the reviled "MSM" propoganda (which, as "we" all know, is the product of the Elders of Zion conspiracy - right? Can I get an Amen?).


Back to Newtown - this is disgusting - there is a cadre of gun nuts who actually believe the U.S. government "faked" the massacre in order to bend sympathies toward stricter gun laws. Yeah, these are the guys with the tinfoil hats warding off government satellites that peer into their brains. They are sending hate mail to Newtown survivors, asking if they got their "checks" yet and the like.


You can add to these the 9/11 "truthers" who think the government bombed Manhattan because...I don't know, because they can? Because the government is enslaved by the Elders of Zion? Whatever. And the Obama "truthers" who refuse to believe he was born in America - because, quite honestly, they just don't want to believe it. Take your facts and go, we're partisans here. Obama's from Kenya and that's that.


Less delusional but equally restricted in terms of content are outlets that hew to a political philosophy and therefore provide "legitimacy" to views such as Rupert Murdoch's form of uber-capitalism - because he now controls numerous media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, he controls the "truth" they collectively espouse. This is true of most media now, it appears diverse but is run by huge conglomerates who own massive chunks (e.g. Clear Channel). On the left, you can find similar closed networks (though as a left-leaner I find them more legitimate because they are less concentrated - but the point is I don't restrict my reading to these left-biased networks alone, and I don't instantly dismiss mainstream media reporting that Harpers or Mother Jones, for example, disagrees with).


So I guess I don't know that we ever had a press that functioned properly to hold authority accountable - a true "fourth estate" - but I know we certainly don't have that now. The mainstream media is merely an arm of corporatism and does its bidding. The "outliers" (bloggers, etc.) who challenge the MSM suffer from problems such as a lack of professionalism, a lack of resources, lack of access, and hidden agendas.


The rest of us are left to try to sort it all out and come to some kind of fact-based conclusion. But with so many "facts" competing for legitimacy, it's difficult to feel any confidence that a democracy's voters will travel the well-reasoned path toward policies that benefit the most people in the most effective manner.


Especially when half the government believes government itself is "the problem". But that's another beef.

[saph]

The last thing that made me angry was actually today at work. Some little bastard child decided to have a shitting spree all through the store. And I mean quite literally dropping his pants, taking a shit, and then taking the shit in his hands and smearing it all over the floor. With no mum in sight.

We weren't allowed to do anything because of health and safety, we had to get special cleaners called in and the mum (Who we eventually fucking found trying on clothes like some blissfully ignorant cunt mother) was banned from the store for life. She didn't even show any sign of embarrassment, not even an apology.

Which brings me onto another fucking point, parents that shouldn't be parents.

I saw a mother with a baby in a pram on the bus the other day, and the baby was fucking hysterical. So instead of giving it attention, she just gives it a dummy to suck on. Obviously this isn't what the baby wanted so it chucked the dummy onto the floor. Now this scum bag of a fucking mother (Baring in mind, it had been snowing and the bus floor was wet and muddy and fucking disgusting) puts the dummy straight back into the babies mouth.

Don't have children unless you're going to be a responsible fucking adult about it.

[saph]

* he quickly became someone I tried to avoid and promptly failed to - due to him turning up at my doorstep at very unsociable hours of the night, sending flowers, leaving cakes on my doorstep and sending me 20 emails a day and my needing the police to get involved... but anyhow...

Whut?

[fatwoul]

I..beef.

That was a really good read. On a related subject, I've got to say this: Israel really aren't doing themselves any favours at the moment.

[fatwoul]

I got a new one on the way home:

Umbrellas.

Umbrellas larger than 8 inches* should be banned completely in built-up areas. People are too selfish to use them without poking out the eyes of the people around them. They should dress according to the environment, and leave the umbrella at home.

*the size limit would allow for cocktail umbrellas, and those comedy hats with umbrellas on.

[modiFIed]

That was a really good read. On a related subject, I've got to say this: Israel really aren't doing themselves any favours at the moment.

I never know when you're kidding.

But I agree that the state of Israel - as opposed to Jews in general, mind you, whom I love, as I am partly Jewish - is a rather paranoid and pushy "democracy". I saw a poll somewhere noting that a vast majority of Israeli Jews favor withdrawal from the occupied West Bank areas (settlements).

But like here, a minority of loud voices shout down and intimidate the more numerous reasonable ones.

As for Syria - I know my own country has no room to talk on this - but at what point do "preemptive" attacks become mere bullying?

EDIT: and here here on the umbrellas.

Also, Catholics. My other family religion. These people are whack.

[LJonesy]

This thread provides a good opportunity to make an announcement of sorts; for all my endeavours in shanghai, i will be leaving early and going home.

(Edit) But the decision to go home isn't what's making me angry anymore. The amount of BS i have to deal with organising everything, on the other hand, is;

Had some friends over to talk about it, drama happened at the end.

Tried to make some calls later. Phone won't work.

Tried to buy the plane ticket i need to go to hong kong to change my visa (need time to tie up loose ends), something there crashed my entire computer and i can only use it in safe mode.

I'm sparing you all from the details because my touchpad on my laptop works by default on safe mode and it makes it impossible to type...

[fatwoul]

Today, I was irritated to wake up and discover that my right sterno-clavicular (which I damaged in 2004 in an entirely silly kiting accident) has decided to make itself known to me once more. I'm on a diet of Cocodamol, Diclofenac and Hob Nobs, and my arm is now in a sling, making typing tiresome. The plus side is that I won't be able to lift heavy shit at work for a while.

[fatwoul]

I never know when you're kidding.

Neither do I.

As for Catholics and Catholicism in general, well, I guess that's the price to pay when you have a smokin redhead in your life.

[katatonic]

It took me 10 minutes to get off the couch earlier due to the extreme pain I'm experiencing. THANK YOU, eldest, for completely destroying my back and pelvis while I was growing you. Hmph.

[fatwoul]

It took me 10 minutes to get off the couch earlier due to the extreme pain I'm experiencing. THANK YOU, eldest, for completely destroying my back and pelvis while I was growing you. Hmph.

Jesus. You taking/smoking anything for that?

[katatonic]

Jesus. You taking/smoking anything for that?

I wish! I am hoping it will go away in August. In the meantime I'm going to look into getting referred to a chiropractor. And I'm making hubby squish my pelvis... a lot.

[Jrltgronic]

I am irritated when my dog pees in the couch.