Tag Archives: jane’s addiction

My White Privilege

“I’m not prejudiced, but by golly, a white male in this country has very few rights, and they’re getting took more every day.” — Sevier County, Tenn. County Commissioner Warren Hurst, 2019

I could probably make a reasonable argument that I drew a short straw when it came to health. Near-sighted, slew-footed and lazy-eyed before 8th grade, I contracted diabetes before my freshman year of high school (Type I diabetes, not that fat ass wussy diabetes, Type II). Then came the eye surgeries. Then the double-organ transplant.

But my eyes aren’t so shot that I can’t see how goddamned lucky I am. I need look no further than my own mother — whose immune system attacked her with “birdshot retinapathy,” rendering her legally blind — to realize just how fortunate I was in the draw. Whatever you got, throw a stone; it’ll pass someone worse off before it touches ground.

That notion, though, seems to have been lost in the country’s recent swell of white nationalism. And if the allegations are true, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man in Brunswick Ga., was a lynching, straight-up — and tacitly endorsed by this administration. Even if the defense of the accused father-son team is true, it underscores the misplaced anger at displacement that rots our nation still. Georgia attorney general requests federal investigation into ...

Arberry was killed Feb. 23 after jogging in Brunswick. The men arrested for his death, Gregory McMichael, left, and son Travis McMichael, claimed that Arberry was running from their neighborhood and they suspected him of burglary. After a confrontation, the defense lawyers claim, Arberry was killed in self-defense.

Consider for a moment what the suspects are claiming. That they witnessed a crime and, instead of calling police, tooled up with a shotgun and .357 Magnum and took off in hot pursuit. And it just so happened their buddy came along for the ride and videotaped the killing to…livestream justice? County police even let the men go home after the shooting, leaving it to higher ranks to arrest the men more than two months after the slaying. THAT is white privilege.

This weekend, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reached out to Bill Barr’s Justice Dept. to weigh in on whether a hate crime was committed. It leaves the Trump administration in an interesting position: investigating a crime it incited.

To be clear: Our president has never instructed his base to go a’ hangin.’ He’s just convinced them that they’ve been left that way.

Consider the above quote, from a dim-witted Tennessee politician who was arguing for his county to become a Second Amendment “sanctuary city,” whatever the hell that is. While the designation may be murky, the motive is not. For the past three years, Trump has been a dog whistle incarnate for two of America’s least-stable geniuses: rabid Christians and Confederates. The Charlottesville protests amounted to a Trump rally with swastikas. David Duke has publicly thanked Agent Orange for bringing America back in line. A new Pew Research poll found 27% of Americans believe Trump’s presidency is part of God’s plan. Apparently, the Lord is feeling gipped, too. Unite the Right rally - Wikipedia

Jews will not replace us! is the conical hat of the New Confederacy of Dunces. Never mind that 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world could be replaced by robots by 2030, according to Oxford Economics. Robots don’t take offense. Scapegoating only works if the goat knows it’s being scaped.

And if the tiki-torchers are to be believed, jobs are being wrenched from our very hands. We white men aren’t free to speak our minds about race, gender, politics, etc. Our guns are in peril. When Barack Obama won the presidency, Fox blowhard Tucker Carlson notoriously noted: “This is not the America I remember.” Tucker Carlson warns that Beijing sees coronavirus pandemic as ...

So is this what you remember, Tucker? Or do you agree with your Tennessee supporter that the white man is seeing more took away everyday?

Because I’m not sure what you’re seeing. And as a white, American male, I get to speak about privilege. I still count plenty:

I don’t get suspected when a house is broken into in my neighborhood.
I don’t get stopped driving in a neighborhood because of my skin.
If I am stopped, I don’t worry about getting shot.
I don’t get a percentage of another person’s paycheck.
I’m not viewed as a threat if I’m strident.
I’m not forcibly restrained for talking back.

Which brings me back to health. Short straw or not, I don’t have birdshot retinapathy, either. White privilege, like health, money, education or anything else that happens to go your way, is not about what you get. It’s about what you don’t get.

Always Signal Your Right Turns

Image result for danielle reno

The presidential race is already too crowded, so I’m not going to nominate this woman for that feeding frenzy. But we in the media owe readers more proof that the human race can rise to the cause.

In this case, the ascension occurred last week, at a Kansas City, MO Quick Trip convenience store, where Danielle Reno met her husband for a custody exchange of their daughter. The exchanges were always amicable, but brief. And this was no different.

But in the moments it took for the handoff, Danielle realized her Toyota 4Runner that she left running was gone — along with her purse, cell phone, cash and the beaded necklace her daughter made for her, which she always kept hanging on the rear view mirror.

“I got out of the car for two seconds and grabbed my daughter, turned around, and my car was gone,” Reno told KCTV in Kansas City. “‘Did I park somewhere else? No. I know I parked here.’ And then I’m like, ‘Somebody stole my car.’ It was all downhill from there.”

Reno reported the theft to police, who reacted as police do to most car thefts: opened a case no one was going to waste time investigating.

So Reno, who has no police experience, took an unusual step: She did something. After filing the report, she went home and activated her “Find My Iphone” app on her iPad. It led her to a home belonging to a woman nicknamed “Taco Bell,” for some reason. Maybe Del Taco was taken.

When she got to the house, Reno knew something was amiss. Bell gave her a bullshit answer, claiming she didn’t take the 4Runner, but that she thought she saw it in her neighborhood. When Reno told police, who went to Bell’s home, Bell dropped that detail and claimed no knowledge of the theft whatsoever.

Reno then went to the Quick Trip store where the car was stolen. The cashier said that Bell was a regular there; in fact, he overheard her say she was dining at an Applebee’s that night. Problem was, Kansas City has as many Applebees as huckleberries, and the cashier didn’t know which one the rotund robber was referring to.

So Reno called her friends and her sister, and asked them to help her by dining at the multiple Applebee’s (where you’re “Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood!”) around the convenience store. All agreed (that, Moscow Mitch, is called cooperation. Say it with me.) Image result for moscow mitch So Reno and the ladies enjoyed their Riblet Platters, Shrimp Fajitas and Taco Topped Queso and Chips — while doubling as stakeout cops.

Lo and behold, Bell waddled into Reno’s selected restaurant — after exiting Reno’s gray 4Runner. Reno sneaked out of the restaurant and “stole” her car back. While the car was full of beer cans in the backseat, Reno found everything except the cash: the purse, the phone and, most importantly, her daughter’s necklace. She drove about a mile away to alert police, who descended on the restaurant. I mean, where was tubby gonna go? The car was gone, and she couldn’t call an Uber.

Image result for taco bell stolen car appleby

Like I said, the presidential election is overcrowded as it is. But maybe local politics are in her future. It just so happens the Missouri governor, Republican Eric Greitens, is a douchebag. In January, he admitted an extramarital affair with a hairdresser, and is now being investigated on claims he threatened to publish nude photos of the woman if she ever went public with the trysts. 011118 SIRAJ Greitens blackmail pic

Riblet, anyone?

One Move, and Fido Gets It

A few years ago, the HB ran a story headlined “Why Kittens Suck.” I was reminded of this while flipping through some old articles, and decided the headline, while in jest, was too harsh. Kittens do not suck; in truth, my house would be full of ’em if I weren’t such a dog nut.

But while flipping through the posts, I saw an ad for Avengers: Endgame. The scene featured The Hulk, the unfortunate doctor belted by gamma rays who was turned into a huge human with tiny patience. And I began to think: What would happen if our domesticated pets were doused with radioactive hocus pocus?

And here’s the bottom line: Humans would be dead. We’d drown beneath loving dog slobber and bleed to death as cats batted us about like yarn mice. Ok, maybe that’s still too harsh, but consider how entitled our feline friends are when they’re small: