Cries of moral indignation

It’s Movember and apparently that stands for More (white men uttering offensive words in) November. If I die of acute moral outrage before I finish writing this article, please sue the three jerks I’m going to tell you about. Ready for your blood to boil?

White male jerk number one: Rand Paul

Did you know that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul — son of nutty libertarian Ron Paul — threatened to kill his critics?* Hello, police, could you kindly arrest this man? Paul is from Kentucky, and we all know those bourbon-drinking hicks would love nothing more than to blast their uzis at us big-city educated types. And why, just because we know how to pronounce hegemony — and can use it correctly in a sentence?

And get this, kids: my dear friend Joan Walsh** also reports that little Rand Paul fancies himself a “writer” and has been branding himself thusly. Randy boy, if you want to see some real writers, you need to get out of your Kentucky hillbilly estate and come to New York. Hell, go to London or L.A. if you prefer, just wherever more than 10 percent of the population can read this article. Literacy is the first step to being literary.

White male jerk number two: Chip Wilson

Next is an entrepreneur whose company Lululemon was, I thought, socially progressive, but now I see he’s just a run-of-the-mill male chauvinist, and the garments his company peddles are crude instruments of female objectification. Who knew that yoga pants were designed with an eye for sexiness?

Chip Wilson showed his true colors in an interview this week. I quote:

“The majority of the world’s women are fat heifers who dare attempt to shimmy into our sexy yoga pants like manatees squeezing through a garden hose. These women should instead be draping themselves with king-sized bed sheets sewn together.” ***

I know, right? All you ladies had better throw out your cute Lululemon tops and pants. While you’re at it, just quit yoga altogether to really stick it to Chip.

White male jerk number three: Lorne Michaels

I’ve saved the best for last. You remember Saturday Night Live, right? It’s that show you used to watch before you were old enough to start petitioning for Greenpeace on Saturday nights. Innocent, mediocre humor interrupted by pedestrian musical guests, right?

Wrong.

Did you know that executive producer Lorne Michaels is racist — and misogynist?

If you’re an SNL fan and you hadn’t noticed this, then you’re no better than some Confederate-flag-waving lizard at a Tea Party rally: among the cast members, none are black and female.*** The common and offensive practice has been to have black male cast members play black women. Clearly, executive a-hole Michaels thinks it’s “funny” to make black men dress as black women, all for the entertainment of a presumably affluent white audience.

I wasn’t watching your show before, Mr. Michaels, and I will be not watching with even more resolve. You, sir, ought to spend a few weeks in a sensitivity camp. Ah, if only we the legal grounds to lock up people like you, the world would be a much less offensive place.

Oh boy, friends, I must leave you until next week. I’m so angry, I’m ready to start kicking some privileged white male ass. Plus, I’ve reached my word limit.

*****

*Paul didn’t exactly say “kill” — he said “shoot.” Well, he didn’t exactly say “shoot” — he said he wanted to have “a duel” with his critics. While his PR people want us to believe that “a duel” is a mere figure of speech referring to a heated debate, we know better than that. These guys are all violent gunslingers.

**If anyone is attuned to our sense of moral indignation, it’s Salon.com, led by the peerless Joan Walsh. Joan, you’re a real lady, and if there’s a place in heaven for the mostly vigilantly offended among us, it’s reserved for you. My only hope is to be next to you after I kick the bucket so that we may seek offense in the afterlife, for the rest of eternity, amen.

***In the interest of journalistic standards, I admit I slightly tweaked what Wilson said, which was that some women’s bodies don’t really form an ideal match with his company’s yoga pants. Still, you know what that jerk really wanted to say, right? Right?

****After researching racial composition of the United States, I’ve discovered that while blacks make up 13 percent of the population, Hispanics as a group are larger; they comprise 16 percent. So while we must demand that Lorne Michaels include black females in his cast, prior to that he should hire a Hispanic man or woman, of whom he currently employs zero to star in his goofy skits. Since there are only around a dozen cast members, he might find that he needs to fire some of the white male actors in order to ensure better representations. And let’s not even talk about Asians. I doubt Mr. Michaels even knows what an Asian is, precisely.

Seriously, if I read about another uneducated redneck saying something I find offensive, I’ll scream. Or maybe I’ll throw my MacBook at the barista who never says “you’re welcome” when I thank her for the latte.

What a busy week it’s been in the Department of Offensive and Inane Speech Acts. It’s as if falling temperatures are causing all the idiots’ brains to slow down even more, compelling them to make public declarations of their idiocy.

Guess who’s making jokes about Guantanamo Bay? I’ll tell you, and you can quote me on this: the journalist Joan Walsh has reported that the journalist Ben Smith reported that an unnamed source reported that several guests at a NYC gala attended by neocons reported that Dick Cheney — I know, right? — said something to the effect that it was good — or something — that he and the other neocons were lucky to be having dinner at the Plaza, rather than sitting in cages at a war crimes trial. Maybe it was Joe Lieberman who reportedly said it. Anyway, you can just imagine Dick Cheney laughing and then snarling. What a bunch of creeps for having maybe said that, and then possibly laughing. You know what I’d say to Cheney if I saw him? Why don’t you go back to Wyoming and bury yourself in two tons of sheep mature, country boy.

Speaking of hillbillies, Rush Limbaugh — and yes, I just puked all over my keyboard, and when my roommate asked why I puked and I said “typing the name Rush Limbaugh,” I puked again — apparently said he wished Barack Obama was white. I know, that’s not exactly what he said, but you know he thinks that way. What he actually said is that critics of President Obama were holding back, fearful of being seen as racist. Well you know what, fat boy? Noting that the president is of a different race than you is a de facto act of racism. It’s like you’re saying “look, he’s different from us and we can’t trust him.” Schmuck extraordinaire, I swear. Before you open your mouth again Rush, I suggest you take a sensitivity course at your local community college.

Speaking of blatant racism, I read an interesting article about the canonical 1998 Nintendo game “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.” It turns out the game is not only racist, but sexist, classist and spiteful toward animals. I know, right? And that whole month back in 1999, I thought I was just playing an innocent game about a smooth-faced boy in tights wishing to save a woman he loves. I was dead wrong.

Think about it. In “Ocarina of Time” you have Kakariko workers depicted as lazy. You have the desert-dwelling Gerudo bad guys (or girls, as the case may be) with bronze skin. You have a princess, Zelda, and she ain’t no Xena. She needs a man — or whatever Link is — to save her. And to top things off, remember the happy cows of Lon Lon Ranch? That’s right. Those enslaved bovines were as pleased as punch to offer their milk to Link, the human — or whatever — oppressor.

The not-so subliminal message is that women should have no agency in the world of men — or whatever species and sex Link and the villain Ganondorf are. Creatures with bronzed skin (read this as black) like the Gerudo are likely to use desert magic to reduce our power hearts. Peasant villagers need to be monitored closely, lest they nap while the hens escape, and talking cows exist for our pleasure, not theirs. “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” could have been written by Republicans. If I had known it was such a rotten game, I’d have never let my mom buy it for me.

There are 9,997 other reasons why I’m pissed off today, but unfortunately the editor will only let me write so many words. It’s for the best, anyway. I need to relax and I shall do so momentarily by lighting some lavender-scented candles.

by Alex Parring

Oh man, as if I needed any more offense today. I’ve had it up to here. If I read about one more person who has said something rude, vulgar, racist, homophobic, or even sarcastic, I’ll scream. I’m serious. I really am. That also goes for people using figures of speech they don’t fully understand.

Take Robert Benmosche, the head of AIG. Do you know what I just read? He said something very, very, very bad. He said that because he’d faced harsh criticism regarding his company’s exorbitant executive bonuses, he’d been the victim of a “lynch mob.” I know, I know. It’s a figure of speech, and he didn’t mean it literally, but still. Does he know anything about American history? Does he know that lynch mobs were terrible and terrifying? If he dares to ever again use a figure of speech like that, I’ll write another scathing opinion piece that he and his circle of friends will never read. Maybe I’ll tweet about him. Done.

I’ll bet you’re furious, huh? Well wait — I’m just starting. Moments after I read about the AIG creep, I saw a story about a Canadian literature professor named David Gilmour who actually said in an interview — he said it, because it’s on record! — that he doesn’t like women writers, or Chinese writers. Misogynist and racist? Okay, what he actually said was that he doesn’t “love” any women or Chinese writers, and that he only teaches literary works he loves, which happen to have been written by men. Can you believe this guy? If I were a woman, and a writer, I would be angry. No, I am angry. How dare this dumb jock say things like that? Shall I inform the world via a tweet? Done.

Oh, and I saved the best for last. I doubt any of you were watching the Miss America pageant last week, but if you were, you would have felt an acute desire to vomit when Miss South Carolina said something very, very, very bad. Brooke Mosteller said she was “from the state where 20 percent of our homes are mobile, ‘cuz that’s how we roll.” Did you catch that? She was openly mocking poor people who, due to the disastrous economy left to us by that hick frat boy George W. Bush, have no choice but to live in a trailer. Miss Carolina’s line might seem merely silly, but it carries with it so much hatred. Of course, we might play the devil’s advocate and say she made a poor attempt at punning — something about rolling as a metaphor for attitude, but she’s not bright enough to think in puns. She hates the poor. Shame on the shaming of living in a trailer. Shame on Miss Carolina, and shame on all people in her socioeconomic class. Going by her looks, I’ll bet her father’s some racist dentist and her mother a snobby socialite who says things like, “y’all want to come down to the spa with me?” Yuck.

There were 9,997 other things that people have said recently that really pissed me off. But alas, I’ve reached my word limit for this article. Anyway, it’s time for me to take a relaxing bath with scented oils. I certainly deserve it, what with the idiocy I’ve faced.