Sticks and Stones

seems lately words have gained significant strength in their abilities to send people a-fluttering and set them up in arms. i call it the pussification of america. the old saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me" has gone by the wayside just as quickly as the venerable golden rule.

these days, everyone is offended by everything, people say stupid shit to get a rise out of the people who are offended by everything, and then offer a half-assed "apology" because the people who are offended by everything complained just enough that the offender or his/her employer comes under just the right amount of heat.

dana jacobson of espn has been disciplined for her "insensitive and vulgar" remarks about the university of notre dame.....made at a fucking ROAST! and of course kelly tilghman was suspended for two weeks for saying that other golfers should want to lynch tiger woods in a back alley so they can win. ya know, 'cause ms. tilghman is a racist who wants nothing more than to string "nigras" up in trees.

jon caldara, a local radio guy on 850 KOA in boulder has come under tremendous fire for using the term "bitch-slap." progressnowaction, a super-duper liberal activist group (and presumably comprised of WASP-Y/JAP-y housewives) has begun an online petition to coerce the host to apologize. naturally, the conservative host has refused and i, for one, think--gulp--he's right.

bitch slap is a fairly common term nowadays. you hear it all over tv, in the movies and in song lyrics. and it wasn't even directed truly at one person as an insult to his/her manhood/womanhood/character. the term was used to describe the beatdown hillary got from obama in the most recent Dem debate. now, this is not to say using such a term--particularly on public radio--is proper or condoned in anyway, but to express such outrage over a non-racial, hardly misogynistic term is borderline ludicrous. surely there are better ways to exert energy and more worthy causes of justice to be pursued by progressactionnow....

....like lambasting john gibson, a talking head a fox "news," for his indescribably heartless, callous and generally indefensible comments about the death of heath ledger. i'm certainly not one to mourn the death of a celebrity for more than a passing "eh, that sucks. i can't believe it," but even i am appalled by mr. gibson's unrelenting inability to be tasteful and tactful. sure, he's a fox-style conservative (to hate for the sake of hatred), but even he must be able to separate the actor--who had a family--from the gay cowboy character he once portrayed...3 YEARS AGO.

the constant give and take of offendees and offenders has exploded in recent years. i always cringe when i hear my elders talking about the "good ole days," since most of the stuff they had back then sucked. but the one thing they did have back then that today's society has an epic lack of is a thick skin.

it used to be that someone would say something mildly offensive, and he'd be passed off as a bigot or a moron. today, even the slightest hint of un-pc, potentially offensive-if-taken-a-certain-way material will elicit a flood of unnecessary outrage from oversensitive pansies with far too much time on their hands. thank you, tiger woods, for manning up and showing that insensitive remarks are only insensitive if you're overly sensitive to begin with. sticks and stones make break my bones, but your words make you a douche bag.