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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
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Monday, April 28th, 2008 STUNNED BY ARABIAN HORSES I began the show Thursday morning, April 24th stunned. This, in and of itself, is a rarity, as little stuns me anymore. It’s not a case of desensitization, but rather of acceptance and self preservation. Things that used to stun me now barely faze me, for I realized years ago that we are a depraved, selfish, ignorant, rude society and there is little I can do to change that, so there is little purpose in allowing myself to get upset over it. I vowed to not become part of it, but find some sort of solace in observing it. From the simple to the sublime, I am rarely stunned. People are more self centered and self involved than ever before and I rarely bat an eyelash any longer when I am cut off in traffic, not granted a thank you for holding open a door, stuck behind someone driving 55 MPH in the freeway fast lane, submitted to the verbal rape of some bored cashier asking questions that are none of her business, or bumped into in a grocery store by some ass-face not watching where he is going. I almost never react any longer when I see one car occupy two parking spaces solely out of selfish stupidity, whether it be conceited self righteousness or the inability to park and/or care about others. I no longer get worked up over things like the innate worthlessness of symbolism ranging from roadside memorials to different colored ribbons and bracelets to support causes all the way to asinine idiots that shave their own heads to show cancer patients that they care. I simply accept stupidity for what it is now and move along. Even in what used be the most horrifying of examples, I have learned to withhold my emotional stun gun. There is little more depraved, disgusting or pathetic than attacking and/or harming the innocent, but I realized years ago that I was surrounded by it. Animal abuse, child abuse and pedophilia all used to shock me. Now, they simply elicit a shrug of acceptance; a moment of remembrance for what was once a civilization that is now nothing more than a collective of cretins. Again, I say to you, this is not only not desensitization, it is also not surrender. I liken it to that moment of certain death; there is, for example, honor in dying with dignity. If you are on a plane that is plummeting towards Earth, there is little more to be done at that moment in time other than to quietly collect your thoughts, accept your fate and make peace with yourself (if possible, have some fun as well with what little time you have left by downing a whiskey). Screaming, yelling, praying, and otherwise making a spectacle of yourself over something completely, utterly and totally out of your control is neither helpful nor productive. Not to mention, if you scream loud enough you may put a little bit of undo pressure on the one guy that can, given a miracle, save your ass; the pilot. I view our society as that plane; we are plummeting towards Earth as a culture and I am not in the cockpit. I certainly don’t like the fact that we are going to painfully vaporize sometime soon, but since I can’t stop it, I am going to enjoy what little time I have left. Bring on the whiskey. I have found this outlook to be quite productive, helpful, soothing and healthy. I rarely find myself overly worked up, offended or emotionally out of control any longer. In a seemingly odd and disparate way, I have also noticed that I see more of the stunning rudeness and stupidity of our society now more than ever before. It’s almost as if now that I am not looking for it to get upset at, it seeks me out, testing my resolve at every turn. Occasionally, I admit, it still gets to me. On a good day, I am comically stunned by certain events, such as last Thursday. One of the myriad asinine parts of our culture I accepted long ago was the media and our society’s total inability to rise above it. The best thing about Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News Channel and the internet is that the free market has created its’ own system of checks and balances and now provides a counterweight to the rest of the media. The worst thing is that what many of us knew to be true long ago has been proven so; there has never been and never will be, such a thing as an objective media in America. This should come as no surprise to anyone who talks to people, since this culture is overflowing with individuals who are so married to their own ideologies that they are incapable of objectivity. In this country, people will piss on your back and tell you it’s raining; and they’ll do it with a straight face. Believing that somehow such a culture could produce a group of people who would actually collect and check facts and then report them without injecting their own bias in an attempt to skewer the reader’s opinion is just laughably unintelligent. For weeks, nay months, we have been besieged with stories about the alleged horrible American economy. Within this story line there has been so much mis-reporting it would make my head spin if I gave a crap. For starters, this country’s economy has been in trouble since the FDR administration when we went off the gold standard. More over, where in the hell have been the stories about the effect of a 9 trillion national debt and a plummeting dollar? The fundamental basis of the American economy actually has very little to do with fundamentals; it has to do with our power. Our belief (and hope) has been that as long as we stay bigger, badder, stronger and slightly more free than everyone else, the world will need us and help us stay afloat (by, for example, purchasing our currency and helping us maintain our illusion of economic stability as a nation). But I digress. The articles and stories of the past few months have been more about the struggles of the common American citizen, rather than the macro-economic issue I discussed in the previous paragraph. Gas prices are soaring, houses are being foreclosed upon, food prices are soaring, people are losing jobs, blah blah blah. No reporting is done on how none of what I just wrote is true relative to the rest of the world or our own country’s history, but who am I to interject facts in an emotional debate? Article after article, story after story, relates tales of how common, hard working, blue collar Americans are feeling the pain, the pressure and the demands of our soaring prices and our dwindling wages. People are having to sacrifice, we’re told, over and over again. We’re cutting back on not just trivial distractions like movies and dining out, but rather on necessities just to get by. Oh, the horror, we’re told, it is to be an American in 2008. None of this stunned me. I expect such garbage from a nation that is ignorant, arrogant, lazy, complacent and entitled. In a country that looks to the government to solve issues of commodity prices, there is little hope. And yes, I do know that most people that read that last sentence will have no idea what it means; I rest my case. I was not even stunned when no one bothered to report on some of the causes of this alleged food/gas crisis; almost all of which can be traced back to the environmental hysteria movement of the past 20 years and a tie-breaking vote in the United States congress in 1994 by Vice President Al Gore, mandating ethanol have access to 15% of the U.S. fuel market (later to double to 30%). The abject disinterest of the American population to learn things for itself and demand that the government and its’ allies stop using a green Earth as a weapon of propaganda is almost singularly responsible for your milk costing more than $3 per gallon, your eggs costing more than $2 per carton and your gas costing more than $4 per gallon. But who am I to interject facts in an emotional debate? I was also not stunned when the media began clearly grasping at straws to make their point of how wide spread the suffering was; I laughed at the stories of wine festivals seeing lowered attendance because of the failed economy and museums not receiving as many million dollar gifts. I chuckled at the alleged trickle down effect of a slowing economy meaning charities received fewer donations, reported by a media that has spent 50 years railing against the legitimacy of trickle down economics. Hypocrisy never stuns me anymore. I was, however, stunned when a new tactic was rolled out by CNN. The media has clearly decided to take delusion, hypocrisy and gall to a whole new level. Under the heading “$100 fill-ups arrive at gas pumps,” I expected to find stories about middle class, blue collar families coming to grips with spending $100 to fill their tanks. I also expected no mention of the poor choices those families had made which has caused them to find themselves in a situation where $100 fill ups caused them to blanch. My wife and I have been spending more than $100 per gas station trip for many months now to fill up our three, V-8 luxury vehicles and it hasn’t changed our lifestyle in the least, solely because of smart choices we made. But I digress. We’re not actually supposed to analyze peoples’ personal responsibility issues, we’re just supposed to be sympathetic and blame a third party, so on with the show. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/04/23/gas.prices/index.html)
The story, as expected, did in fact paint a bleak picture of a struggling family, just trying to make ends meet: COALINGA, California (CNN) -- Noel Bosse and Ken Davis watch as the numbers keep spinning at the gas pump -- 70 bucks, 80 bucks. Gulp, guzzle, then it stops: $101 for about 25 gallons.The $100 fill-up has arrived in the United States."I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Bosse said with disgust. You can almost picture Ms. Bosse shaking her closed fist at the gas pump can’t you? Certainly, I thought, the next paragraph will be about their two sick children, who can’t get proper medical care because Mr. Davis was laid off when the factory in their small town shut down. Right? Right? Let’s see: I read the entire rest of the story, waiting for the punch line. I figured at the very least that the story would take the angle of “see, even rich people are feeling the pinch of the economy,” or maybe the more sarcastic, sardonic tone of “how dare they bitch when they are that well off to begin with,” but it never happened. The story actually played this off as a real life, relatable story of how bad it is to be an American in 2008. This hard working, blue collar, Arabian Horse owning couple is just trying to survive? Are you kidding me? According to a classified ad search on www.arabianhorses.org a quality show horse, the kind you would travel across the country with like these two clowns do, would average about $25,000 and could exceed that greatly. Damn those $100 fill ups. I am a wealthy American and no one hates more than me the attitude that demands, “oh, you’re rich, you can’t complain about anything,” but come the hell on. Both this couple and this story need to get a grip. While it is true that just because someone is wealthy that doesn’t mean they don’t have problems, it is also true that perspective matters. What’s next? Is this couple going to complain about the rising cost of caviar and New Zealand lamb? The audacity of the media to pass this couple off as an example of hard times in America is as galling as the couple themselves. Perhaps a footnote to the story would be that while life in the greatest country on Earth clearly sucks thanks to $100 gas fill ups, in other countries they are EATING their Arabian horses to stay alive. Now that’s stunning. ----- |
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