Tag Archives: Bad Ideas

Tuesday Two-Fer: In Toothsome Condoms and Oily Prayers We Trust

by on June 22, 2010 in Are You Serious?

*TRIGGER WARNING*

  • A doctor in South Africa, a country with a very high rape rate, has developed a condom she believes will help reduce the amount of successful rapes in her country. Check it out:

    While of course this sounds great in theory, getting some street justice and whatnot, I see a few problems with this. One, you have to go around wearing an internal condom with teeth in it, which I imagine is somewhat uncomfortable, even if the teeth are on the inside. Two, this seems to be highly likely to enrage the person attempting the rape. I can see it enraging them to the point of killing the victim, severely beating the victim, or to be blunt, simply picking another hole. I mean, once rapists know there’s a possibility their target might be wearing one of these, they can easily check before they attempt the rape to make sure the coast is clear. And if the target is wearing one, I can see repercussions possibly occurring.

    It’s a great idea in theory, and I know I wish I could have had something like that at my disposal the two times I experienced the horror of rape, but I also am kind of glad I didn’t for the reasons outlined above.

  • Sarah Palin and the Louisiana State Legislature have decided to present the spill to their god for fixin’. Palin tweeted:

    @SarahPalinUSA Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man’s efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle
    7:59 AM Jun 20th

    I always have fun thinking of all the fallacies laden in thoughts like this. What if the Christian god wants the oil there? Maybe he’s punishing BP by causing them to lose money. Maybe he’s punishing New Orleans for being a sin-ridden city. Maybe he’s punishing Obama for being a secret Muslim. Maybe he really likes oil. You just don’t know. Maybe in a few years we’re going to be glad that oil is there! Don’t question his master plan!

    Really, if he doesn’t want the oil there wouldn’t he have prevented the pipe from breaking in the first place? Or does he just feel like fucking with us for a bit before he fixes the pipe? I understand that people believe prayer works. More power to you. I have to be honest, sometimes when I’m desperate I shoot a little message out to any god that might possibly exist for a little help. I don’t really think anything’s going to happen. But I’m one of those try anything type people because you never know, there might be something out there. Maybe Palin and the members of the Louisiana State Legislature are those kind of people too. Although it sounds like they’re rather serious. It seems like the time for prayer would have been earlier on in the disaster so their god would have less to clean up. That’s kind of rude.

    Okay, I’ll stop making fun of evangelicals already. I’ve just never been, even when I was a practicing Christian, one of those people who believed god directly intervened in situations in which, say, we’ve screwed ourselves with our addiction to oil. And it’s just amusing to me that the woman famous for chanting “Drill baby drill” is now thinking we need divine intervention on this one. Perhaps BP should have prayed before they leased the rig, asking their god for guidance on how to prevent it from blowing up. A priest could have blessed the pipe and none of this would have happened. Okay, okay, I know I said I would stop. It’s just, hello, separation of church and state? A legislative body declaring a day of praying for the oil to stop flowing? How about some real, concrete solutions that people can carry out on their own, sans divine intervention. How about NOT drilling offshore? No, no. Couldn’t do that, we need that oil. It’s our god-given right to burn that oil. And now we’ve got to go get all that oil out of the Arctic. Since that’s not offshore it’s surely not going to ruin the environment in any way!

    I’m just waiting for Pat Robertson to start blaming the spill on feminists and gays.

Comments { 10 }

NEWS: Most Black People Don’t Want To Volunteer to Be Lynched

by on May 26, 2010 in Why Racism Isn't Over

A teacher in Georgia thought it would be a good idea to have her students do a film on racism and dress up like Ku Klux Klan members. So the students wore the costumes to school and walked around like that, which was an even better idea. Naturally if you’re going to do a film about racism and the Klan you need to include a re-enactment of a lynching, so of course the students asked another student, a black student, to help them out with that one. Can you believe he actually got upset about that? Because as a black person, I would be glad to participate in a mock lynching in order to help out some white AP students with their school project.

The teacher is on leave with pay over this. She states she’s just trying to teach her students about racism because “[...] we have to discuss racism in our society because if we don’t, we are condoning it. And I don’t cover it up. And you can’t discuss racism and not include the Klan and that’s what we were doing.” A discussion of racism necessarily involves dressing in homemade Klan costumes (not that there’s a company that manufactures official Klan costumes, but you know) and parading around the school. There’s really no other way to discuss the Klan other than doing that! You couldn’t like, show your students documentaries about the Klan, or documentaries on racism period, or just have an actual discussion that DIDN’T involve dress-up.

So now the Rev. Markel Hutchins, Lumpkin County Georgia’s local Al Sharpton, is involved (I’m sorry, but why is it when these things happen a preacher is dispatched from the black community to handle the situation) and demanding diversity training and meetings with the superintendent and sheriff’s office to make sure there’s no retaliation against black students who were upset by the incident. You brought that on yourself, Dahlonega, GA, so no complaining about the race card because you straight played the race DECK. And what has the teacher learned from this? “I would tell the students that if you are going to film the Klan, do it on your own time and out of school.” Yes! Because what we need are more extracurricular lynching re-enactments!

This goes in the Hall of Fame of Bad Ideas on Dealing With Racism.

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