Number 180

 If a Rant Falls in the Forest, But There's No One There to Read It, Is It Still a Rant?

When I was in college, I took a class about dinosaurs with my friend Michael. One day this weird young woman (and before anyone calls me out for being insulting, I'm fairly certain that most Oberlin students would be pleased to be thought of as "weird." With that in mind, I guess we could describe this particular student as being 'extra' weird), asked a question that had something to do with dinosaurs being feathered. "Oh my fucking God!" I thought to myself, "Just how delusional is this one, anyway?" (It is equally easy to encounter Oberlin students who have a shallow grasp on reality.) Michael and I had a lot of fun walking back to our dorm after class laughing about 'dinosaur sized chickens' hopping around; and generally making fun of the poor, deluded soul from our class. In that moment, we were quite secure in our intelligence and feelings of superiority: feathers on dinosaurs, for fuck's sake, how ridiculous! In other words, we were being ignorant assholes. 

Well, whadaya know, folks? Some dinosaurs had feathers. And with that, our smug feelings of supremacy over some twit weirdo took a direct kick to the balls. We deserved our comeuppance.

With that, I dedicate this post to all the smug, self-assured, dick heads out there, so secure in their ignorant and malicious stupidity, that they are threatening to take this world down with them. To them I offer up a sincere and deeply felt, middle finger salute.

To all those religiously conservative assholes who relentlessly quote mine the Bible; without understanding the inherent loss of nuance when translating from one language to another - especially when you go from one alphabet system to another (Hebrew to English, Greek to English), the different cultural norms in play when the Bible was written, or the splendid irony that their sainted "King James," was, in fact, gay; in order to prop up their own hatred of the LGBTQIA+ community I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those who believe that "science" has an agenda - Folks, science only reports the facts, and hopes that we will make rational and well-formed decisions based upon those facts - I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those who believe a thrice-married, failed and bankrupted real estate developer, who has been accused of marital infidelity and sexual harassment multiple times, with the personality of a carny in a circus sideshow, as well as being a litigious, thin-skinned, folicly-challenged, self-important jackass is the savior of the western world, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you." (Seriously dudes, he doesn't give a fuck about any of you.)

To all those people who dismiss any information that they don't care for as "fake news," I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those people who use "socialist," and "fascist" interchangeably, with no sense of irony, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "People, read a fucking book!" Oh! and "fuck you," too.

To all those people who keep electing light-thinking, extremist demagogues who believe compromise is a dirty word, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those politicians who play upon the fears and worst notions of their constituents in order to gain power, instead of legislating through challenging and nuanced issues, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those people who participated - including all the politicians who whipped the crowds into a frenzy - in the insurrection of January 6, 2021, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those who deny an insurrection occurred on January 6, 2021 - who would be calling for the execution of every participant if they had had black or brown skin - I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you."

To all those who champion White supremacy, believe that supporting Black lives is tantamount to hating other groups, or actively denies that our country has a troubling past related to race relations, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you." 

To all the gun fetishists of the NRA, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you. May your dreams be haunted by the fearful cries of the young victims from the Sandy Hook shooting"

To Tucker Carlson, and the other pundits of his ilk, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt, slimy and gangrenous "fuck you, you Pied Piper lying sacks of shit."

And finally, to all those misguided, ignorant assholes who have turned mask wearing and vaccination shots into an assault on personal freedom instead of the common sense, "lets pull together to rid the world of this fucking virus" solutions that they are, I offer up a sincere and deeply felt "fuck you, you rabidly dumbass motherfuckers."

Now. I know this post won't change a thing. But I have felt the bile in my soul rising, day after day, one Marjory Taylor Greene tweet at a time, to the point that I was swimming in an existential cesspool of hatred and ignorance. With hope, this post will open a drain, and all the slimy, snot covered stupidity and vitriol will disappear into the sewer. However, the way things have been going, it's likely to be eaten by the alligators that dwell there, growing them to a size roughly akin to a Boeing 747. Cheers.