A Few Phenomena I'll Never Understand

1) Christmas lights

I'll never understand how celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ has turned into this. I'm sure the nexus somehow involves Santa Claus, capitalism and OCD but it's still pretty insane how endemic it's become. The act of putting up Christmas lights usurps celebrating the actual holiday. My family has the same dialogue every Black Friday (after the dawn shopping, of course): "Junk the hay and pumpkins and put up the icicle lights! Get the fake deer that move their heads in the yard, now! Where the fuck is the "Santa Stops Here!" sign? Well, pull the cobbwebs off it and stick it in the yard!" I was driving along Route 40 tonight and saw a house with one of those huge, inflatable, lighted snowglobes and four of those huge, inflatable, lighted snowmen in their yard. It literally blinded me, both by its luminescence and its inanity. I mean, fuck it. If we're going to literally highlight our blatant disregard for energy conservation, I say leave the lights on 24/7, year round. "Yeah, bitches! Oh, Americans use 25% of the world's resources? Wah! Now we use them all!" And then, you know, we all die in a nuclear 9/11. But it'd be funny for a while.

2) George Bush apologists

OK, now I understand that the jury is still out on Bush's standing in the pantheon of U.S. presidents but...aw fuck it, you know he's going to be rated worst! Worst ever! Here's a small list of reasons why:

His handling of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the economy, the war in Iraq, the purging of U.S. attorneys, appointing an ex-dildo salesman as head of FEMA, shitting on the Constitution, and making "enhanced interrogation" and "rendition" part of common 21st Century parlance.

And yet...there are many who defend this man. There are many who think he will be rated among the best of our leaders. And whenever you attempt to spoil their reverie with a little facts, they get all pissy and claim you're un-American.

It's funny, because I question the patriotism of those who vote Republican. I think George Bush has been a better recruitment tool for al-Qaeda than Osama bin Laden. Yeah, I just fucking said it. A few days after Obama's victory, al-Qaeda released a video tape mocking and denigrating Obama, claiming he was an insult to "honorable" black Americans like Malcolm X. It's clear to me, and many others, that al-Qaeda is shitting in their throbes over Obama's win, partly because he has pledged to remove U.S. troops from Iraq. The number one reason al-Qaeda is able to recruit young men to suicide-kill is because of our sustained presence in the Holy Land. That's what incenses them. And the funny things is, Bush actually removed our troops from Saudi Arabia after 9/11 in what will go down as easily the best move he ever made on foreign policy. But then the moron turned right around and put hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops right back in their faces. A Bush apologist would say, "Yeah, but we haven't been attacked here since 9/11." To which I would respond, "How many people died on 9/11? Around 3,000? How many U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq? 4,209." Declare victory over that, motherfucker.