Thursday, April 19, 2007

I must stop.

I allowed myself to get drawn into the KR political discussions again, and even started one relating to the VT tragedy by linking to this. It blows my mind that these people have Faithful Listeners nodding along with the hateful things they say, and I think we have to drag this garbage out into the light of day and let reasonable people see how toxic they are. But what blew my mind again was that someone on KR took their side, sort of, saying that they were introducing reasonable questions. (Yeah, that's right: "The VT shooting victims: cowards, or just wussies?") That's a valid and necessary component to this topic. When I responded to her she folded, but not graciously.

And I love it when women argue online, with the snotty little digs masked as politeness, because some of them start doing the girly thing, addressing the other party as "Hon," or 'Sweetie," or "Dearie," and you know it's code for Bitch. It's just such a girl thing.

Just like the Good Christians who say "Bless you," inappropriately, when they are angry - it's their way of saying Fuck You and both sides know it.

So I'm pulling back from those discussions. (See, Dr. SL, I'm trying to be less...ME. I am getting all serene and Zen, and knowing when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. Breathe, breathe....)

I was on the treadmill at the gym and CNN was in front of my face so I listened to it - they stopped the Parade of the Pseudo Experts about VT and covered the Gonzales hearing for a while. They switched to it right as Arlen Spector was flaying Gonzales alive, Gonzales sounded like a dumb 9 year old caught in a lie, and I thought, "Hoo, this could be fun!" So much fun that I turned on C-SPAN when I came home, and listened to it while doing other things. Gonzales' answer to everything, apparently, is that he has no idea what is going on at Justice, he delegates stuff to other people, he can't be expected to know everything, and if his name is on it he doesn't recall it, and if he made a phone call he can't remember that either. (In other words, he's the ideal Bush Administration Official.)

Orrin Hatch helped him with this - that was the other funny part. Hatch tossed these gentle softballs of talking points to Gonzales, trying to get him to wax dramatic about how hard his job is and how many people he has to supervise and how he can't be expected to know everything what the hell is going on. And Gonzales is such a lox, he fumbled every one of Uncle Orrin's gentle tosses. I guess he'd been stammering and making excuses for so many hours, he didn't recognize an opening to explain that he has too many responsibilities running the Justice Department to know what's happening in the Justice Department he allegedly runs. Priceless.

Changing the subject - hold on, don't fall off - I spent part of the afternoon opening boxes that had been in the attic for ten years. I'm not done yet. I found more books, a collection of Girlchild's stuffed animals in excellent shape, a nice lamp, two not nice lamps, a few more decorator things, and a load of Christmas stuff, because my mother kept passing her stuff to me when she got tired of putting it up. I have Santa's Effing Workshop in boxes in the garage. There may be elves in one of the boxes, I thought I heard muffled cursing - or maybe that was just me. This is going to be a big garage sale. I'm trying to figure out who I can draft for backup sales help. I hate garage sales, but it's worth it when I have this much Stuff to offload.

Boy went canoeing. He didn't come here just to toil for mom, and he certainly earned it. Tomorrow we will pull the hard drives from the PCs and do other air conditioned things, and Saturday will be another garage session, and he leaves Sunday. And I will continue to organize, and when it is done, it will be so much better.

13 comments:

vi said...

hey catherine, it's me vi
i call folks honey and sweetie all the time...
i didn't mean it to mean bitch
( you mean it does?)
i thought that was when you said something and then said 'bless his heart'

if you noticed....i rarely talk politics or religion....
for me i figure
no one is going to change my mind about where i stand...
and i am probably not going to change anyone else's mind
so why waste my time and get myself annoyed.....
but that's me

are you going to mdsw?
you may not need to buy anything but don't you NEED to see the sheepies and alpaca's and bunnies????


vi
who is getting DUCKS on saturday...muscovy ducks
i know....i know they are ALL over florida....but they are kinda rare up here in pa....

Catherine said...

It's when the words don't match the tone of the other words, Vi, someone is arguing with you about something and then ends it with, 'Sweetie," you know she doesn't mean sweetie. It's a time-honored online snark trick among some females.

I am going to MDS&W. I have a weekend pass from my yarn fast, but I don't have much desire to buy anything. I'll spend some time reviewing the patterns I really do want to make, and make a shopping list for appropriate yarn, so if I see it I will get it.

Sue said...

OOO I got mad too. I had to back off and regroup. Nobody has the right to call a dead person a "wussie". Ever.

Marfa's Mewsings said...

Miz C,
Kudos to you & Boychild for all the cleaning-out. I grew up in a home w/those pull-down stairs - good idea to have two folks doing that job.
I have stayed away from any on-line discussions re VA - trying to keep my low blood pressure in its normal state.
Looking forward to seeing you at MD!
XOXO

geogrrl said...

Whoah! I couldn't believe some asshat was actually calling the dead "wussies". All I could think was, "Let's put you and those like you in the same situation and see how brave and clearheaded YOU are." I'm betting they'd wet themselves.

If you let the elves out now, you'll never round them up in time for the garage sale. Besides, they'll start decorating the house with cute Christmas kitsch and who wants THAT?

Gigi said...

There are people who will come orgainize your yard sale for a cut of the profits, if you are remotely interesed in that. I have no idea how you might find them, but you might be able to Google yard sale organizers. It's an option.

Anonymous said...

OMG - Like geogirl said, let's see how these pundits would react in a life or death situation. My thought is they would shit themselves and be the first one jumping out of the window.

This makes me so angry I can hardly see straight.

Catherine said...

It affected me the same way - I was LIVID when I read that. Then this morning Glenn Beck was on GMA talking about "if only those people had guns," with his chubby little soft jowls waggling, and I had to turn off the TV. Dirty Harry fantasies fuel a lot of this "self protection" crap. Guns are better than Viagra for making some guys feel "manly."

I am not anti-gun, I have friends who are avid hunters, and I understand that there are people who legitimately need to carry a gun for protection because of their jobs, but why on earth should a random college student be able to walk into a store and buy a Glock 9mm and HOLLOW POINT AMMUNITION "just because?" There is no purpose for that gun other than shooting human beings. I can't grasp why we have to take a test to get a license to drive a car, and I have to show ID and sign something to buy a box of freakin' Claritin D, but that guy was known to have mental problems and still had no trouble buying a gun. But hey, I'm just a dumb liberal wuss.

Amie said...

I was so glad to see you respond the way you did, because her m'bitchy comment pissed me off royally. You should have called her ma'am, too.

Anonymous said...

I've learned a lot about how to argue from watching and playing over at KR.
And I will quit the Pollyannna shit soon, I promise.

Catherine said...

Amie, I did call her M'DEAR right back. I hate that "m'dear" and "hon" crap when women disagree - I've been online since 2400 baud modems and used to, God help me, moderate discussion groups on AOL and I've seen more of this than I want to think about. I could argue much more pointedly, but I don't out of respect for Clara's house. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm another one who is glad you opened the subject up but am also glad that the thread is winding down. I, too, have backed out. It was interesting and very revealing and definitely made me feel closer to some KR members that I didn't *know* before this---and worlds away from some that I thought I did.

Catherine said...

I'm glad it's winding down too. I didn't intend for it to go on so long or shift to a discussion of gun control - oh, wait, "gun bans" because any sort of regulation of gun ownership is a "ban" in the NRA bumper sticker mentality. I am willing to concede that there may be some people who use semi-automatic handguns for hunting - just because I've never heard of any, because the hunters I know can't walk up to a deer and point a handgun at it, doesn't mean some don't try - but I was ready to throw in the towel after handgun ownership was equated to collecting knicknacks. I just sat here with my mouth hanging open, staring at that post. Because we all know those FBI statistics of death and injury caused by those unregulated porcelain kitten collections. Jesus. There is no common ground to discuss this issue.