"Racist Chia President" pulled from shelves

Wallgreens - one on America's hugely sucessful meglo-marts has decided to pull the hot selling special edition Barak Obama Chi product from it's shelves following the protests of a select few individuals. Once again, as predicted in my earlier posts, some Americans' hyper-sensitivity to this president borders on ridiculous. So thin skinned are these people, the actual shade of pigmentation matters less than the lack of big picture thinking displayed in the omnipresent outcries of racism where none exists.

Sure, as in all matters, the eye of the beholder is the sticking point. As a white - 2nd generation Canadian I have been subjected to repeated, insulting advertising produced by agencies and broadcast by networks fearful of offending anyone but the one gender and race deemed worthy of abuse. Lacking any organization, lobby or cultural permission to voice outrage over such issues, it has become impossible to find more than a handful of spots that treat all people the same - or at least spread out the role of dupe, dunce and slob around a little.

So either it's time to do something - make the whiners prove their point or justify a hypocritic foundation to their stance. It's been going on for years - it's getting worse - and the many homes with children growing up without the presence of a positive male role model get instead this racist, sexist garbage used to sell tooth whitener and Lincoln Navigators to insecure female viewers.

The great writers are all in cartoons

The writers who have turned South Park into the hottest 18-34 year old demographic hit have been overlooked far too long - it is they who have carried the torch of the great sci-fi writers of the 50's and 60's. Overlooked and under the radar - the team of young, savy mostly white, male scribes are all sent to work over the issues that divide and infuriate America on a weekly basis. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a yearly Las Vegas reterat where they frame up the seasons episodes - with more than a few holes to be nicely filled by the writers who push racism, sexism, consumerism, politics, and every form of family life in a white bread, redneck town in Colorado. Once again, the people who pertain to protect the masses from people like these have missed the subversive, brutally accurate portrayal of the hypocracy and brutality of our present society.  Free to roam right under the noses of those who are clueless, the  team of writers have a weekly poke at what is really going on in American (and to a lesser extent-Canadian) society.   

During the U.S. Presedential election, this demographic was reffered to as "South Park Republicans" and were summarily dismissed as slackers by the lib-left media - voters 18-35 who don't "rely on traditional sources of news information"  

I think it would be wise for politicians of all stripes to pay heed to the two generations who were raised on cynicism, sarcasm and disrespect. Having more or less frozen at age 8 of 9, the success of the series will preclude the boys ever becoming adults like their ripe parents - but one never knows.

Brutal times for the man

I have spent the weekend with my daughters - a bi-monthly delight of thousands of Canadian - and frankly - global daddies. My bad luck that the stomach flu had hit by the time I picked the 17 month old up on Friday. Two days of the delights of high fevers, vomiting and kelly green diarreha was my lot, but the fever broke Sat night, and I was as happy as any sleepless parent could be. Parenting is hard. It was hard when there was two of us doing it, and it is surely twice as difficult with half the workforce.

Having negotiated the government and court systems over the past month, I was gobsmacked by the absolute non-existance of men in any of these offices. If I did see one, it was surely someone who fit the racial guidelines outlined on page one of every government HR web page. As someone who has lived on the fringes of this society, I feel it might be time for a worker to be available who has some degree of empathy or personal insight as to my mindset during these trying times, let alone have a hope to be hired by the one sector left that keeps spending money, guarantees pensions ans wages, as well as the fattest wallet in the land (other people's money of course). There has been a dramatic shift in the hiring paradigm - for a generation now; Universities still spit out thousands of eager young women with their gender specific degrees - ready to help yet another sister step on the rights of someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong except to be born with a penis - especially a pink one.  Shut up - do not voice your displeasure let alone point out the very real facts that define racism and sexism.

The truth hurts - some of us more than others. It is not popular to stand up for one's rights when the rest of the world has been allowed to view you as somehow undeserving of anything gained in a world described as brutally sexist, racist and unjust. In the immortal words of Mr. Rodney King "Can't we all just get along"?