By: Editors
[2003-04-22]
Two Short Hates
various degrees
My Pet Peeve by Greg Hansen
I just found, and bookmarked, your sight...and I'd like to pose an article for your consideration; My Pet Peeve.
Now, before I tell you what it is, I'm going to tell a story. My father's mother is Hispanic. Her father moved to America when she was a little girl. He required the family to LEARN and SPEAK English. If he was addressed in Spanish, he would ignore you, unless you were not able to convey the idea in English. So they learned English, and spoke it. After this story, I'm sure you've guessed my pet peeve.
It's the people who live in America who speak NO English, and furthermore, WILL NOT learn it! There is no one legally living in America (border-jumpers are another of my pet peeves, but I'll save it) who is unable to get financial assistance for education, especially for ESL (English as a Second Language, just in case you didn't know). This is not just directed at Hispanics (though they are the worst transgressors) but to anyone who moves to America for the tax breaks, but continues to claim their citizenship from their home country. Traditions are one thing, though they should be mixed in with American traditions, but that's another.
I have been to towns in California where everyone spoke Spanish, and three quarters of the people didn't know any English. This is sick. Anyhow, that's my spiel. It's something I hate and I felt like sharing... venting, anyhow.
Spiders by Morticia
Whenever I find a big hairy knobby-kneed FUCKING spider in my bathtub I FREAK rightthefuck OUT!! They are sneaky and HAIRY ...they crawl in places that I wouldn't even put my turd-encrusted fingers near.
I like to immobilize them with hairspray (the spiders not my turd-encrusted fingers) and while they are still WET I like to sprinkle them with Draino (tm Proctor & Gamble) and watch them do the "funky chicken."
Then I like to slap them with my fly-slapper till their legs fall off. Then I *flick* them into the drain with a couple of bank-shots and flush them away with boiling water for good measure. Then I run my tongue allll over where the spider was to make sure there are no bits of spider-stuff left in the tub.
After peering down the drain with a flashlight, I take a pair of tweezers and fish out any hair and slimy gunk that happens to be caught there and run my TURD-encrusted fingers from one end to the other to see if the little bastard is hanging on for dear life... by his teeth of course, as he has no legs... and quickly pop him into my mouth, slimy hairball and all and drink a bottle of Cuervo to wash it down with. After I have hurled into the tub I check through the lumps and bile to see if it is still breathing. THEN I feel content and safe and pile all the vomit into my widemouth thermos to keep it body temperature so I can rub it on my genitals later.
I think that I saw a picture of a pet peeve once, but I forget what it looked like; I suppose that they look different depending on who they belong to. There are many Latinos here, and sometimes they dress up like cowboys with fancy boots and cowboy hats, but those are mostly the country guys, the Latino city guys see them looking like cowboys and yell, "Orale, Marlboro" at them. I don't have any spiders that I've noticed, nor any cucarachas, but I've got lots of crickets. The crickets mostly live in the ceiling, but some seem to like the bathroom and I go through similar although not as extreme measures as does Morticia to get rid of the pinche crickets. I was more friendly to the pinche crickets before they ate my rattlesnake rattle which had thirteen rings. So far the pinche crickets have not started eating my clothes or anything else but if they do, it's chemical warfare time, and Adios, pinche crickets.
Personally I love immigrants. I've read that there's a clause in the state constitution of California that in fact protects the Spanish language and says that it should be continually recognized as a state language, or something like that, which obviously hasn't happened over time. I'm not sure if I'm right about that, but regardless, California was originally part of Mexico, so I'm all for recognizing it's Mexican heritage.
I also love spiders because they eat mosquitos which I DO hate. They also make cool webs and have that whole bloodthirsty, scary thing going on but will for the most part leave people alone. This is wonderful because you can get all the pleasure of watching them torture little flies without any fear for your own life. Best voyeurism experiences guarranteed.
"recognizing its Mexican heritage"; sorry.
"guaranteed". I will never forgive myself.
Perhaps you should re-read mine. My Grandmother is hispanic. I love the Mexiacn Heritage, I HATE people who live here without learning the english language. It pisses me off, and this is thingsihate.org afterall. :)
Some of the traditions and cultural habits that new immigrants bring don't fit my game plan but I don't get angry, I just make other plans. The main example is that the Indo-Pak extended families like to go shopping for vegetables on Saturday as a unit, so just forget about the produce section on Saturdays at some sooper markets. They passed a county ordinance that the Arabs can't slaughter goats or lambs on the spot in the back yard when they're having a bbq, which it would be OK with me if they did. But I guess that some damned neighbor got freaked when a goat bleated a bit before it was dispatched. I don't generally favor the Hindu custom of letting the cows wander around anywhere they want; it might be fine in rural areas, but it's not a good idea where there is a lot of 70mph traffic. Probably the new immigrants have some issues with current eurocentric American customs, but hey! so do I. On the whole Americans are more tolerant of auslanders than are other sociopolitical entities. I like it when the new immigrants wear their native clothes, there's one local extended family group that has three day parties on the weekend, they're from Bolivia and they have nice clothes and hats, the women wear sort of derbies.
TMBG has a song called spider that has a Japanese dub feel to it, which I like.
Aside from that, Japanese spiders are extra evil. The word for spider is kumo, which also happens to be the word for cloud. Which makes sense because the fuzzy, smaller black ones can nearly fly with the altitude they gain from jumping. There are also black, spindly legged spiders that grow to about the size of your hand. I have no idea of their genus species, but am intimately familiar with the disgust that reaches up one's throught after squashing one with a toilet slipper.
eek, man, eek
I had a pet black widow named Elvira, a Latrodectus. The baby black widows migrate by making parachutes out of spider silk, and they have been found parasailing by ballonists at altitudes of more than 15,000 feet.
I must hate you for your obvious irony.
I once got an email from a man called Elvira, the email was to someone of the same names as me who was helping out a companywith their IT and getting a web presence and stuff, this being not entirely a million miles away from the thigns I do it was wierd.
Anyway so I get this email the first of many that says,
Dear A______,
Thank you for your work on the site, ...
...
Love Elvira.
Now many might consider that they had just been sent an email from someone called elvira but the way the name of the email arrives as Tom somethingorother, said otherwise.
I was stalked on the internet for a year after this I even started getting text messages thanking me for the work I'd done.
Well, thanks again for all of the work that you have done. The check is in the mail.
There's a Mexican joke news group that had a sort of funny letter recently, it was an apology from Vincente Fox to Dubya saying that he was sorry that Mexico wouldn't be able to participate in the Irq war because they need the tank for the Cinco de Mayo parade.
We do it to piss you off. Just you. We all know English, but we want to talk about you when you're around. Gringo nalgas prietas!
Wow...the thingsihate editors must have been caught napping to let that diatribe through...
Before anyone lambastes anyone else for not rushing to adopt the mother tongue of Joe Millionaire and the O'Reilly Factor, let us consider the freakish hegemony that the English language enjoys in almost every country in the world. Kids in Western and Northern Europe have been funneled into compulsory English language classes from elementary school onward, and the trend is being adopted everywhere else in the world.
How can you blame anyone for wishing to resist the imperialism of American culture in whatever way they can? Personally, if America had not been the scrap of dirt where my parents happened to have sex, I would go out of my way to avoid learning English just to spite the ubiquitous, jabbering lummox that is American culture.
Also, since the American population (15% of the world's population) enjoys 85% of the world's resources, people from poorer countries cannot be blamed for wanting a fair slice. If jobs are lost to cheaper labor, blame the greedy capitalist who hires them and exploits them.
Fin
And we Indians are speaking the Nahuatl and laughing all of the time because we are high on peyote! Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja!
Americans who complain about the abundance of resources they enjoy EVERY DAY make me wish I was Canadian. Almost every stitch of clothing in the United States is made overseas in a sweatshop, but I don't see you complaining about your Nikes or your Kathy Lee designer sweater you fucking hypocrite. If you are so high and mighty then lets see you boycott all of those clothes made overseas, all of the electronics that run your computer, all of the car parts and everything that make your life so much easier than some poor fucking kid starving to death in Uganda. I don't agree with the strong arming of governments or the disdain with which our government deals with people fighting for independence in places that lack petroleum reserves, but I'll be God damned if I don't enjoy filling up my gas tank for $1.45 a gallon and going wherever the hell I please. While I'm drving aimlessly about I might stop and get a taco, which is good, and then maybe a plasma TV that was built in some Korean sweatshop. If you think I feel should guilty about any of those three things, you can lick my anus. Life is too hard and too short to waste fighting things so unchangeable as the fate of the world. If you're a aprt of that 15% you should make the best of it. That starving kid in Uganda would trade places with you in a heartbeat.
I haven't bought into the consumerism. Sure, there is fancy junk that I would like, but I am happy with second-hand junk from eBay. There are computers with twice the clock speed as mine and 400gig drives, but I'll wait another year or two because this one is still OK, and two years from now, there will be faster boxes with 1,000gigs. In international development class, we were told of a "life boat model" wherein not everyone will fit into the lifeboat without endangering the safety of the lifeboat. And of a "Fourth World," everyone knows of the Third World, but in development triage, there are those areas that don't need help, those areas that would benefit from help, and those areas beyond help: The Fourth World. I like the voluntary simplicity movement, people are opting out of yuppie lifestyles and learning to live without what Madison Avenue wants you to buy. A good book to read is Marshall D. Sahlins little book, "Evolution and Culture." Cultures also experience evolution, and much of the political economy and conflict that we see is this cultural evolution. Also in development class, we were told that all development problems are not solved by US foreign aid; many countries had an internal economic distribution skew much worse than we have in the U. S., and that internal redistribution would solve problems in many countries. I would welcome any 10th century goatherders to come to the Future, but leave your culture when you come. So, basically I don't care what kind of costume you wear, what language you speak, or what kind of music is native to your part of the world; if you want to get into the lifeboat, I want everone rowing in the same direction at the same time, or I'll flog your misbegotten heathen back with the cat o' nine until it looks like a gawdam meat waffle. Now, Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!
Thomas Keegan, I know ye not, but thou art the man. And we should definitely listen to these wonderful complaints about our country that everyone capable of forming an opinion feels they should cry about, as soon as they relocate to Etheopia to enjoy the warm, compassionate government there, completely devoid of anyone who would ever want to progress their government by means other than those which are perfectly fair and just to all involved. Right guys? Guys?
William Kristol? Well, that puts me off my feed right at the git go. Also, I think that it's damned pretentious to call this an "American" century. They should be damned careful about buying a pig in a poke. I will study the "issues" on this site, but if it's got William Kristol's name on it, I can tell you what it will say. I more favor the
Club of Rome who have been doing statistical projections for a long time, it started as Fiat, Volkswagon and Olivetti Computers. Also, it has less spiders than the American Century site.
Also, SpiritualCramp, if what you said is truly what you believe, check out this site, it seems to be more than appropriate.
http://meshier.com/fs/a/index.html
for people who are not SpiritualCramp I highly recommend that you do not follow that link!
Awwww!! You ruined it!!
The pilgrams should have learned the pre-colonial europian aborigenal american languages, and adopt buckskin as their mode of dress? Might makes right, I suppose. They beat those filthy christ-less heathens into submission, praise god!
American century my left toe! Only through a colaberation of ideas and cultures can we evolve as a species. Why should they learn a new language? Oh, because some self-serving bunch of all crusty guys who have lost touch with the real world and spend their time and our money debating on what to name a food to spite an autonomous (breath) country for not supporting them in some vendetta? Blah, I say! People don't have to do anything. The true beauty of being a sentiant being is that you can make your own choices, no matter how un-American they are!
I thought McArthy died.
Sorry for all the spelling errors.
What's this about 15%? Even if there were 300 mil americans, which there aren't, that would be less than 5%.
I awoke in a strange house once, on a foreign couch with nothing
but a red raincoat and one leather boot on. I was abruptly yanked
from my blissful slumber with one of my patented Overindulged:
Stabbing Me In The Eye With An Icepick headaches. Strangely, the
first thing I noticed was that I was missing an item of footwear
while I lopsidedly ransacked the kitchen (the nearest room) trying
to find ANYFUCKINGTHING that would kill the pain even if it was a
large serrated breadknife. Having found relief in an
industrial-sized bottle of prescription T-3's (didn't they know to
hide such things from a druggie?..ah, well, they do now) and a
half-finished drink of warm oj and vod.
This was about the time I could open the other eye and see that I
was
One: missing some clothing
and
B: in a Strange House
I had no idea where I was nor why I was there, let alone being alone
and naked; the last coherent thought being, I was at a bar (yes THAT
bar) seeing triple of everything I surveyed from my regal perch on
my stool and having a grand old time.
I staggered about to find the bathroom in that eerily quiet house
and lo and behold there was the errant boot AND all my clothes in a
jumbled pile on the bathroom floor, reeking of spilt alcohol and
wetly wrinkled almost beyond recognition. I dressed hurriedly and
downing another drink foraged from the bowels of the kitchen and
before the unknown host(s?) awoke I scuttled out of there, clutching
my Keys of Escape, to find out just where I had crash-landed back
into reality in a reeling, shaken, untidy fuzzy-headed one-booted
slagheap. I saw my trusty steed awaiting me right where I had parked
it last night, just down the road from THAT bar, parallel parked at
a rakish angle. I hugged my steed and kissed it lovingly on the
steering wheel for being a good car and staying in the general
vicinity. I made my way home with a strange triumphant smile on my
face, glad that I had once again foiled the gods in their quest to
destroy my credibility by taking my clothes away. A week later, once
again ensconced on my perch at the bar, a casual drinking buddy
filled me in on that night and his subsequent rescue of my
alcohol-sodden self from certain doom at the wheel of my trusty
steed. I thanked him profusely and did not mention my lack of attire
nor confusion that night at his place (and the missing T-3's),
having learned to go with the flow in these instances and just nod
my head in mutual agreement and understanding.
