Tag: Constitution

Pointing Out the Idiocy in DC Isn’t Fun

On By ls1228In Dirty dealing, Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me Off, politicsLeave a comment

americaheartI love this country.  I am a history geek and a political junkie. Anyone who thinks I enjoy pointing out every ill or poorly advised, moronic, illegal, unethical, immoral and dangerous thing that the Donald Trump White House has done in their first 3 weeks, couldn’t be more wrong.

Whether I think the man occupying the Oval Office is a buffoon or not, he is The President of The United States, and he swore an Oath to Uphold the Laws and Constitution of the United States of America.  He isn’t doing that so far and it is the right and obligation of every American to demand that he do as he has sworn to do.  He owes at least that to you, me, and everyone in these United States.

It breaks my heart to see the country I love brought down in reputation and esteem and to be a laughingstock in the world’s media.

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We have become an international punchline because one man with a monumental ego, the people he has surrounded himself with in the White House, and one party are on a giddy path of deploying vengeful racist, sexist, immoral, and unethical policies, actions and behaviors toward their peers and the populace that hasn’t been seen in my lifetime.

That’s just a few things in the first 3 weeks folks…Hmmm

Do you use Facebook? If you’re interested in the occasional product that intrigues me or something I’ve bought that’s a waste of time or money, things that make me wonder, piss me off, tickle my fancy, scream like a maniac, giggle, or yell in frustration, you can receive an email each time I’ve got something new to ponder or you can join the nearly 3,000 people who find me engaging or amusing at the Facebook page dedicated to this blog: https://www.facebook.com/extremeblondemoments

Lighten Up People!

On By ls1228In election, entertainment, Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me Off, TechnologyLeave a comment

blazingsaddlesBefore special interest groups began dictating the tenor of the news, the 24 hour cable news cycle, cell phones (with instant video to internet upload ability), and social media’s ability to take a story worldwide in milliseconds, things that weren’t politically correct were funny.  It’s okay, you can admit that you laughed at the off-color humor of the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s everyone did.

  • Whose dad didn’t come home from a night out with the boys with a bad joke or two?
  • Who didn’t laugh at the dozens of “Revenge of the Nerds” type movies that filled the theaters?
  • “Blazing Saddles” and it’s blatantly racist humor?
  • What about the “Cheech and Chong” movies?
  • How about the very raunchy stand-up routines of Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Bobcat Goldthwait, Andrew Dice Clay, Richard Pryor and others of the era?
  • Who didn’t see (and die laughing at) the VERY R-rated Eddie Murphy “Delirious” and “Raw”?

Today if you admitted to laughing hysterically at any comedy of that type, at minimum, you’d be accused of being (depending which comic you were describing) any one of:

  • Racist
  • Sexist
  • Xenophobic
  • Anti-Establishment
  • Discriminatory (Against the disabled or intellectually “challenged”)
  • A Pedophile
  • Abusive (Spousal or otherwise)
  • Homophobic
  • Alcoholic
  • A Drug Addict (or finding the practice/behavior acceptable)

babes-of-the-sunset-stripEnvision your 1980’s party-girl bestie, who years ago would have been laughing beside you.  Now she’s among the modern-day helicopter parenting, wine drinking /judgment passing disguised as women’s bible study night, soccer-moms who, rather than just ignore jokes or delete things they’ve decided they “can’t” publicly find funny anymore:

  • Spread emails publicly shaming a person who shared an off-color joke or meme
  • Encourage mutual friends to cut a person from social circles for the same
  • No longer allow their children to associate with the person’s  children at or after school
  • Have contacted Human Resources to report the “inappropriate” behavior at work as harassing, gotten them reprimanded, and even fired
  • Have spread the gossip to their places of worship, children’s sports teams and other participatory organizations, making the person and their family feel so unwelcome they leave and even more from their home.

All of this stemming from having the nerve to have a sense of humor and realizing that there is still a First Amendment.  How one person’s right to share and enjoy humor has gone from people just deleting the offending or not funny email or just giving the person a courtesy laugh or politely asking not to hear that type of joke/language to the extremes above is everything that our society was never intended to be.  Our Constitution and protections of the many rights allowed to us within the Bill of Rights is exactly why we have gone to war.  #PeopleNeedToLightenUp

You might wonder what made me go Hmmm about this today.  Well, it was seeing another stupid headline about Donald Trump’s Twitter war with the way that he is being characterized on Saturday Night Live. #SatireIsProtectedSpeech

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When Saturday Night Live was actually funny (from 1975 through the 1980’s) everyone tuned in to see the double entendres that Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radnor, John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey, and dozens of others over the ensuing decades tossed out that danced just below the censor line.

trumpsnlBased on the personal offense that the President-Elect is taking to the lampooning Alec Baldwin’s almost weekly Saturday Night Live performances are giving him, he must have forgotten the very nature of the show he admitted to enjoying before he actually won enough electoral college votes to earn the job he was seeking.  Saturday Night Live has always made its laughs at the expense of the folly of politicians (including past Presidents), celebrities, sports figures and other notorious media personalities.

For a while (read that, when it served his benefit) Trump was in on the “joke.”  Trump appeared as a host on SNL multiple times, largely to take the wind out of SNL’s  anti-Trump sails.  He refused to poke fun at himself and was only interested, when he hosted in 2015, in an appearance that was widely criticized, in downplaying his inflammatory campaign trail statements about Mexican and Muslim immigrants.  Now he seems much more interested in wielding whatever power he retains at NBC by making veiled threats that SNL, which has survived 42 years and 7 Presidents, is on the way out.

This quote from the June 10, 2015 edition of  Salon Magazine perfectly sums up my feelings on critical opinions of satire and comedy:

  • Know the performer you are watching on TV, listening to or seeing live
  • If you’re in the public eye and don’t like what’s being said about you, especially if the truth hurts, #ChangeTheChannel
  • If you don’t enjoy raw, politically honest, racial, sexual, vulgar and other taboo topics that might be in a show, DON’T GO SEE THAT COMEDIAN OR ANYTHING THEY ARE IN! #FreedomOfChoice
  • If people you know enjoy that type of comedy you don’t have to stop being their friend, but you don’t have any right to pass judgement on their taste in entertainment.  They have no right to choose your shoes, your home, your car or your husband/wife – the same logic applies: #ToEachTheirOwn

lisa-lampanelliLisa Lampanelli,  “The edgy comic wrote a piece in the Hollywood Reporter titled “How Political Correctness is Killing Comedy,” writing “Here’s the problem: Comedy, probably more than any other art form, is subjective. What jokes crack up your mom, your little brother, and your gay best friend will be completely different — unless it’s a video of a guy getting hit in the gonads with a piñata stick. That’s funny to everyone….If you like safe, generic comedy, that’s fine. Go on a cruise ship and crack up listening to the comedian point out the hilarious differences between loafers and shoes with laces. But don’t go to one of my shows and be outraged by what you hear. Going to my show and expecting me not to cross the line of good taste and social propriety is like going to a Rolling Stones concert and expecting not to hear ‘Satisfaction.’”

fpbaarClosing with a return to the theme of #PeopleNeedToLightenUp, if my kid were still small and asked for this toy, I would totally buy it if it was real!  As kids we played house in a real playhouse.  Mom and dad left for work during the day and went out on dates at night.  Well, it’s 2016, dates are now happy hour after work and my girlfriend owns two of the bars I like: that’s real life small business ownership in today’s society people!  I couldn’t care less if people agree with my humor or not.  #IWouldBuyTheFisherPriceHappyHourPlaySet

Are you on Facebook?  If you’re interested in the occasional product that intrigues me or something I’ve bought that’s a waste of time or money, things that make me wonder, piss me off, tickle my fancy, scream like a maniac, giggle, or yell in frustration, you can receive an email each time I’ve got something new to ponder or you can join the more than 2,800 people who find me engaging or amusing at the Facebook page dedicated to this blog: https://www.facebook.com/extremeblondemoments

Organize This Chaos

On By ls1228In election, Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Helpful Tips, Pisses Me Off1 Comment

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This Blonde has had enough of the hateful personal attacks coming out of the woodwork, the attic, crawling out of the sewers and the swamps, falling from the skies, and everywhere else.

Many people who claim to be your friends aren’t. They hold racial, gender, sexual, and religious biases that differ with your beliefs. Deal with it, erase them from your life or learn to agree to disagree if that’s possible, but you are not going to change them anymore than they are likely to change you.

America, because tens of millions of people seem to need a refresher course in U.S. History, was founded on a few basic principles that are stated quite clearly in The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The government of the people, by the people and for the people is clearly outlined in the Declaration of Independence, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

All that said, this Blonde has a few things to get off her chest:lamarch

  1. Peaceful protest is a First Amendment right
  2. Vandalizing property, assaulting citizens and committing other crimes of opportunity are not
  3. Peaceful protests and petitions can result in desired change: A Texas Electoral College Member (a state that was awarded to Trump) has publicly stated he is considering a change in his vote on December 19th, and a petition circulating on Change.org, asking the Electoral College #VoteYourConscience and follow the will of the Popular Vote to award the election to Hillary Clinton, has (as of 12:30 PST) gathered 3,620,136 signatures.
  4. Protests that stray from the intended purpose and spiral into lawless riots turn people against your cause

Police in the cities where days of protests have been happening are being supportive of Constitutional rights and doing what they can to keep the protestors safe, but when they turn the switch and become thugs and criminals they are playing right into the playbook of the voters whose votes they are protesting.

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Instead of inflicting damage which will cost cities money to clean it up, think about other ways to protest that may get the point across.

  1. If a company where you regularly shop, dine at or otherwise patronize supports values, laws and lawmakers that you don’t, then change your spending habits. Shop, dine and spend your money with companies that share your values.
  2. If the house of worship you pray in has deviated from the righteous path that you try to follow, then join another congregation that more closely aligns with your beliefs.

Major sports leagues, the NCAA, corporations, organizations, recording artists and others have moved their events away from states that enacted legislation that was Anti-LGBTQ. By doing so, hundreds of millions of dollars in spending was directed away from those economies. In the end the almighty dollar is a much greater sword to wield when the intention behind the loss of revenue is known.

The estimate in lost revenue to North Carolina alone was a HALF A BILLION DOLLARS. Several companies intending to move their corporate headquarters or build regional facilities canceled their contracts costing jobs, tax dollars and they still did not, and have not, changed their Anti-LGBTQ legislation.  In fact, they have diverted $500,000 from the state’s disaster relief funds (funds that are sorely needed to repair massive storm damage) to fight litigation against their Anti-LGBTQ legislation!  HMMM

If you don’t like that your City, County or State voted to elect a Councilman, Mayor, Commissioner, Assemblyman, Senator, Representative or yes, President, then let your money, as well as your voice and future vote do your talking.

  1. Enough with causing chaos in the very cities you claim to be speaking for
  2. Don’t contribute to your party the next time they come calling
  3. Write letters to your representatives
  4. Send letters to the editor of your local and regional papers
  5. Start a grassroots movement “Bernie-Style”
  6. Remember that mid-term elections are only 2 years away

In 2018, 33 of the 100 Senate seats are up for re-election. Currently Republicans hold 52 seats and 8 of those will be up for grabs: Arizona, Nevada, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, & Wyoming.  If any Senators die in office or are otherwise unable to serve before that, there can be special elections, so there is no reason to wait until then to get involved if this really matters to you.

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