the list of now

The beat between apathy and rabid, nagging, annoyance.  Do I have distaste for these things?  Not necessarily, I don’t care enough.  I start to develop exposure angst, when I do not I wish to see, hear, read, or discuss them EVERYWHERE.

1.  Justin Bieber + his stupid hair
Unless everyone wants to join me in my ongoing campaign to refer to him as “Justin Beaver”.  Then we can talk.

2.  Mel Gibson
So new recordings have proven that Mel Gibson is a racist, misogynist, threatening, abusive dickhead and he comes up with all kinds of creative ways to express those aspects of his personality.   I can understand people being outraged and offended, what I don’t get is why anyone is surprised or still talking about it excitedly.   Tell me when he has consequences for this behavior.  (Or when more men in our culture do, period.)  Until then, I’m tired of everyone being titillated by disgusting displays of 18 different kinds of fucked-up privilege.

3.  Mark Zuckerberg

And the movie hasn’t even come out yet!

4.  People who get off on bashing Twilight + Twihards

It’s like this:  I don’t care and neither should you this much.  Obsessing over hating something like this and the people who love it is just as tired, if not more, than the constant media circus around the SMeyer empire itself.   If it’s as stupid as you claim to think, can’t you find something more worthy of your passion and energy? Your pretension is unbecoming.

I’m not on either side, even though I really dislike the whole phenomenon at this point, generally speaking.  I read. I viewed. I ranted. I shut up.  It’s that easy to get over!  REALLY.

5.  This one was supposed to be “Excuses from BP”

And it was going to say something about how I care most about the people in the Gulf who are suffering (and will suffer a long time) because of this and how I didn’t want to hear shit for excuses anymore. There have been nearly 90 days of excuses, failures + finger-pointing.    I only wanted to hear from BP if they made any progress on stopping it.

I’m happy to say I won’t be ranting about this one, because they have actually made some progress on stopping it. (Finally)  I am hopeful, but I know there is a lot of work to be done to clean it up and fix the many, many layers damage done to Gulf area and the people who live there.

I am not at all apathetic about this one.  This conversation needs to be everywhere and I hope it is.

Click here to read more of This Week in Aggressive Apathy.

I know I wasn’t the only one who caught this gem on MSNBC last week:

Here’s a recap: Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, not only spewed all of the McCain/Palin campaigns most bullshit, hateful talking points but went on to repeatedly use Joe McCarthy’s favorite catch-phrase “Anti-American”, insinuating that Obama and several other “extreme left-wing liberals” might harbor some scary Anti-American views. An increasingly annoyed Chris Matthews kept trying to get her to elaborate, to say something of actual substance, instead of making truly gross generalizations and vague accusations. This pushes her to a rallying cry, calling on the media to do a “penetrating expose” and investigate members of congress for troubling “anti-american” activities and views. (I only wish I was making this up).

It was insane. And she’s got those crazy eyes too! Those “I know you are talking, but what I’m saying is positively riveting, so I can’t hear you” eyes. (Suze Orman, I’m talking to you!)

So, fast-forward to today and here is the delightful fallout. Apparently in Minnesota, if you dare to do something as ridiculous as calling for a witch-hunt, you get yours.   And by “yours”, Michelle Bachmann,  I mean a tasty karmic boost for your political opponent.

You see, she is running for re-election and was favored to win against an elvish democrat who is now (due to humiliating her-damn-self on national television) quickly becoming a house-hold name:

(wait for it…)

Congressman Elwyn Tinklenberg (See, Elvish!)

And in two weeks, Minnesota also may the be proud owner of a brand new Senator Al Franken! (he is leading in the polls, go Al!)

Here is what happened, according to the Washington Post:

In Minnesota, little-known Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg announced yesterday that he has raised $1 million over the past four days for his House campaign, after Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann questioned Sen. Barack Obama’s patriotism and recommended that the news media investigate whether other members of Congress are “pro-America” or “anti-America.”
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The money began flooding in from across the country after Bachmann made the comments in a seven-minute appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Friday. “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?” she told host Chris Matthews.
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The backlash from Bachmann’s remarks gave Tinklenberg enough donations to quadruple his television advertising, prompted the nonpartisan Cook Political Report to flip its take on the race from “likely Republican” to “tossup” and inspired a Republican who lost to Bachmann in the party’s primary to launch a write-in campaign.

um… 1 million dollars in FOUR days? Amazing!

I love news like this.  I hope when Michelle Bachmann heard it, she thought “wow… I screwed up.”  I think it would be too much to hope she would know how WRONG she is.  So let me spell it out, for her and McCain/Palin and any of the others using this kind of rhetoric:

That is how some really motivated, angry, bleeding-heart liberals who are most decidedly not anti-american say, “We have had enough.  You no longer get to define what is “American” to serve your purposes, elevate your status and line your pockets.  We are tired of you deciding our voices and our issues don’t matter and we are taking our country back.  You hateful, fear-mongering, fuckers.”

More of this, please.