Your Aunt Slugger browses several news outlets each day. In no specific order, these news outlets are
The Boston Globe
NPR.com
CNN.com
The Wall Street Journal
That Foreign Salmon-Colored Newspaper
The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
The New York Times
Each of these news outlets offers something different. But one thing they all have in common: sports. You can't get through a single one of these news outlets without somehow encountering sports. Your Aunt Slugger hates nearly all sports. The only sports I enjoy are racquet sports that take place in an enclosed court because you don't have to run as far to find the ball, and your chances of sustaining an eye injury are far greater, which would mean ending the game early to go have appetizers. I also enjoy a good game of H.O.R.S.E. (South Side High School Sixth Period Women's H.O.R.S.E. champion '95 right here), because that's a sport that can be played, if not not improved, with alcohol.
Anyway, I realize that other people like sports, so I am not begrudging these news outlets for reflecting the interests of the masses. So I will instead complain about the masses.
Over the past few days I have been carefully avoiding clicking on any stories with the words "Alex," "A-Rod," "Rodriguez," and "Yankees" in the headlines because they clearly do not pertain to me. Instead I have been clicking on EVERYTHING ELSE. I've been trying to drum up interest in absolutely anything besides baseball. Anything at all. But then yesterday I saw this headline:
"Alex Rodriguez Says, 'I am Fighting for My Life.'"
And I thought to myself, "Oh my god, is he dying?" and I was suddenly consumed with sympathy for this man, who I assumed was suffering from a terrible disease or being unlawfully detained by the North Koreans.
Oh whoops! Sorry! No! My fault! He's been accused of using steroids and has been suspended for the rest of the season.
I don't wish to point fingers here, but which of you fuckers out there is sustaining the interest in steroid use among professional athletes? This, to me, is like reading a headline that says, "Grocery Store Sells Food" and "Pigeon Enjoying Discarded Croissant in Penn Station" and being interested. I should think the real news story is when a professional athlete is NOT accused of using steroids.
But perhaps it's time for me to accept that maybe I am just a statistical outlier when it comes to my interest in these matters, since I am sure a lot of people would say that this is not news. Although they would be wrong.
Answering life's deepest questions
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
CNN Wastes Valuable Internet Space
First, I would like to thank my fans for the outpouring of congratulations I received on the announcement of my engagement. I would provide an update on the ring shopping, but doing so is based on the assumption that anyone cares, which people undoubtedly do not. So the update on the ring shopping is that there is no update, because you people have better shit to do with your time.
So we are back to our regularly scheduled Aunt Slugger programming. Today, your Aunt Slugger came across this article by a woman who feels as though she has been ostracized for her decision not to have children. In this article, she goes on to compare herself to gays and lesbians who wish to have children but cannot, and she makes many claims about the hate-filled remarks she has received over the years. She writes,
"The pressure is particularly intense living in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where my husband is stationed in the military. I've had women tell me that I was a horrible person, a horrible wife and a horrible American because it was my 'duty' to reproduce. I was shocked to hear such a statement in 2013."
Let me start this off by saying that your Aunt Slugger does not have kids, unless you count her cat or older brother who has a doctorate but cannot operate a stove. Your Aunt Slugger does periodically receive questions about whether she will have kids, and in fact, now that I am engaged to be married, I have received this question roughly seventeen times per every 24-hour period. It is an annoying question, mostly because it is very, very hard for your Aunt Slugger not to answer this question by saying, "I would love to have kids, provided they do not end up like yours."
But let's get back to our CNN contributor, who apparently believes she is a member of an oppressed minority group. So it is time for your Aunt Slugger to issue a
CRITICAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
Stop pretending to be victimized in national op-ed articles. You're acting as though you just published The Satanic Verses. And also, stop hanging out with assholes. If people are telling you that you're a horrible person for not wanting kids, you are hanging out with the wrong people. Go find some new friends. For the love of god, you said it yourself: It's 2013. You don't have to hang out with people who are dicks. De-friend them on Facebook, buy a new bumper sticker, and make some new friends. Your Aunt Slugger has friends across the spectrum: with kids, without kids, without kids but wanting kids, and with kids but looking for a good sleepaway camp so that they can get some goddamn rest. And none of them have ever called your Aunt Slugger names.
So please cut this shit out and find something of more importance to write about.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
Childless Advice Columnist Who Does Not Give a Fuck What You Think of Her Childless Situation
So we are back to our regularly scheduled Aunt Slugger programming. Today, your Aunt Slugger came across this article by a woman who feels as though she has been ostracized for her decision not to have children. In this article, she goes on to compare herself to gays and lesbians who wish to have children but cannot, and she makes many claims about the hate-filled remarks she has received over the years. She writes,
"The pressure is particularly intense living in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where my husband is stationed in the military. I've had women tell me that I was a horrible person, a horrible wife and a horrible American because it was my 'duty' to reproduce. I was shocked to hear such a statement in 2013."
Let me start this off by saying that your Aunt Slugger does not have kids, unless you count her cat or older brother who has a doctorate but cannot operate a stove. Your Aunt Slugger does periodically receive questions about whether she will have kids, and in fact, now that I am engaged to be married, I have received this question roughly seventeen times per every 24-hour period. It is an annoying question, mostly because it is very, very hard for your Aunt Slugger not to answer this question by saying, "I would love to have kids, provided they do not end up like yours."
But let's get back to our CNN contributor, who apparently believes she is a member of an oppressed minority group. So it is time for your Aunt Slugger to issue a
CRITICAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
Stop pretending to be victimized in national op-ed articles. You're acting as though you just published The Satanic Verses. And also, stop hanging out with assholes. If people are telling you that you're a horrible person for not wanting kids, you are hanging out with the wrong people. Go find some new friends. For the love of god, you said it yourself: It's 2013. You don't have to hang out with people who are dicks. De-friend them on Facebook, buy a new bumper sticker, and make some new friends. Your Aunt Slugger has friends across the spectrum: with kids, without kids, without kids but wanting kids, and with kids but looking for a good sleepaway camp so that they can get some goddamn rest. And none of them have ever called your Aunt Slugger names.
So please cut this shit out and find something of more importance to write about.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
Childless Advice Columnist Who Does Not Give a Fuck What You Think of Her Childless Situation
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Someone Tries to Make a Respectable Woman of Your Aunt Slugger
Dear Aunt Slugger,
Are you married? If not, I think I would like to propose. Please let me know via a notarized affidavit if you are interested.
Sincerely,
Inmate #58791, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary
I will grant you, Inmate #58791, that your offer is appealing. You have stable housing and possibly access to cable television, which are two qualities I find attractive in a potential life mate. However, your window of opportunity has closed, because just this weekend, your Aunt Slugger received another marriage proposal, and she accepted it.
Yes, readers, you read that correctly. Your Aunt Slugger is engaged to be married. Your Aunt Slugger is very excited about this proposal, because being a married woman will lend some credibility to my advice columns about how to keep your husband happy, since we all know this is a topic your Aunt Slugger blogs about frequently.*
Your Aunt Slugger's paramour proposed to her with the caveat that your Aunt Slugger be responsible for selecting the ring. "I do not want to be held responsible," he said, "for making that decision." After shooting down my suggestion that we buy an Angry Birds ring from one of those grocery store vending machines, he took your Aunt Slugger ring shopping.
Now might be a good time to share with my readers a story from my youth so that you may have some context. When your Aunt Slugger was in the fourth grade, she entered a contest at a local mall to guess the number of Legos it took to build a giant Lego astronaut that was featured in this mall. A few weeks later, I received a letter saying I had won the contest and that the prize was $500 in gift certificates to this mall.
Bear in mind that I would be thrilled with such a prize NOW, let alone when I was roughly nine years old. It was like winning the lottery.
So my mother took me to this mall so that I might spend some of my winnings. Our first stop was the now-defunct L.S. Ayres department store, where I decided I wanted some jewels to complement my fashionable wardrobe of dog sweatshirts. My mother wisely steered me toward the costume jewelry section because I did not know the difference. I proceeded to select about five hideously tacky rings before my mother finally told me to call it quits on the jewels. But I did get my rings, and they were delightful. My mother winced uncomfortably when I would wear them.
Fast forward to today. Little has changed, except that I now have a job and am not constrained by my mother's jewelry store interventions. I buy 98% of my jewelry from established jewel dealers like Forever 21 and Claire's Boutique. I am always the oldest person in either of these stores.
So it goes without saying here that your Aunt Slugger does not belong in a regular jewelry store. And I certainly do not belong in the engagement ring section of a jewelry store. Yesterday, your Aunt Slugger and this poor dude who proposed to her went to a nice jewelry store, where the guy behind the counter looked as though he was fighting off an aneurysm the whole time we were in the store.
"I think I don't like this rectangle here," I said.
"The emerald cut," he said.
Well EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME. I took geometry in high school, and I know a rectangle when I see one. And that was a rectangle. If it were a dodecahedron, fine. That doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Call it something else. But your basic jewelry shapes are circle, rectangle, square, flat square, and square with rounded edges.
So it goes without saying that your Aunt Slugger has not yet found a ring, or even a jeweler who does not have one hand on the panic button the whole time she is in the store.
But that does not mean that she is not still very excited. I am busily working on my next column, "How to Keep Dinner Warm While Your Husband Is Working Late."**
Very sincerely yours,
Aunt Slugger
*Never.
**Tell him to put it in the microwave; this isn't rocket science.
Are you married? If not, I think I would like to propose. Please let me know via a notarized affidavit if you are interested.
Sincerely,
Inmate #58791, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary
I will grant you, Inmate #58791, that your offer is appealing. You have stable housing and possibly access to cable television, which are two qualities I find attractive in a potential life mate. However, your window of opportunity has closed, because just this weekend, your Aunt Slugger received another marriage proposal, and she accepted it.
Yes, readers, you read that correctly. Your Aunt Slugger is engaged to be married. Your Aunt Slugger is very excited about this proposal, because being a married woman will lend some credibility to my advice columns about how to keep your husband happy, since we all know this is a topic your Aunt Slugger blogs about frequently.*
Your Aunt Slugger's paramour proposed to her with the caveat that your Aunt Slugger be responsible for selecting the ring. "I do not want to be held responsible," he said, "for making that decision." After shooting down my suggestion that we buy an Angry Birds ring from one of those grocery store vending machines, he took your Aunt Slugger ring shopping.
Now might be a good time to share with my readers a story from my youth so that you may have some context. When your Aunt Slugger was in the fourth grade, she entered a contest at a local mall to guess the number of Legos it took to build a giant Lego astronaut that was featured in this mall. A few weeks later, I received a letter saying I had won the contest and that the prize was $500 in gift certificates to this mall.
Bear in mind that I would be thrilled with such a prize NOW, let alone when I was roughly nine years old. It was like winning the lottery.
So my mother took me to this mall so that I might spend some of my winnings. Our first stop was the now-defunct L.S. Ayres department store, where I decided I wanted some jewels to complement my fashionable wardrobe of dog sweatshirts. My mother wisely steered me toward the costume jewelry section because I did not know the difference. I proceeded to select about five hideously tacky rings before my mother finally told me to call it quits on the jewels. But I did get my rings, and they were delightful. My mother winced uncomfortably when I would wear them.
Fast forward to today. Little has changed, except that I now have a job and am not constrained by my mother's jewelry store interventions. I buy 98% of my jewelry from established jewel dealers like Forever 21 and Claire's Boutique. I am always the oldest person in either of these stores.
So it goes without saying here that your Aunt Slugger does not belong in a regular jewelry store. And I certainly do not belong in the engagement ring section of a jewelry store. Yesterday, your Aunt Slugger and this poor dude who proposed to her went to a nice jewelry store, where the guy behind the counter looked as though he was fighting off an aneurysm the whole time we were in the store.
"I think I don't like this rectangle here," I said.
"The emerald cut," he said.
Well EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME. I took geometry in high school, and I know a rectangle when I see one. And that was a rectangle. If it were a dodecahedron, fine. That doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Call it something else. But your basic jewelry shapes are circle, rectangle, square, flat square, and square with rounded edges.
So it goes without saying that your Aunt Slugger has not yet found a ring, or even a jeweler who does not have one hand on the panic button the whole time she is in the store.
But that does not mean that she is not still very excited. I am busily working on my next column, "How to Keep Dinner Warm While Your Husband Is Working Late."**
Very sincerely yours,
Aunt Slugger
*Never.
**Tell him to put it in the microwave; this isn't rocket science.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Easily Among the Top Ten Greatest Marketing Failures in American History
Your Aunt Slugger doesn't check her mail much. I'd like to say that this is because I have moved to paperless billing and am thereby reducing wasteful mailings, but this is definitely not true. No, your Aunt Slugger does not check her mail much because the mailbox is in a centrally located building in her apartment complex, and it is out of her way. And by "out of her way," your Aunt Slugger means, "not right next to her door."
Your Aunt Slugger also receives a great deal of junk mail. Almost an unprecedented amount of junk mail. I trace this back to an ill-advised purchase I made from a coin dealer. Your Aunt Slugger does not collect coins, nor does she have strong feelings about coins one way or the other. But I saw this article about a glow-in-the-dark Canadian quarter and figured this coin would make a nice, if not sophisticated, addition to my curio cabinet full of Muppets glasses. I paid $35 for this coin, waited six months to get it, and then also received a commemorative Elvis coin for my patience. I have subsequently received a number of phone calls from this coin dealer, including one where I was sucked into the conversation with tales of a special panda coin.
"Well that sounds interesting," I said. "How much does that cost?"
"Two thousand dollars."
So my coin collection still only consists of the dinosaur coin, the commemorative Elvis coin, and a gold coin that I found on the ground and initially thought was a unique foreign coin until I realized it was a Chuck E. Cheese token.
Anyway, back to my original point: I am fairly certain I receive a lot of junk mail because the coin people sold my name and information to anyone out there who has a product to sell. All of this junk mail goes in the recycling bin, but I do have to sift through it for real mail, like letters from my grandmother and pamphlets advertising pizza deals.
So yesterday I finally dug into my pile of junk mail, and in this pile was what may be the single weirdest item I have ever received in the mail: an offer to subscribe to a magazine entitled "Angels on Earth." I decided to open this piece of mail. Below is the text of the letter, altered only slightly to use my legal name, Aunt Slugger.
I received an offer of three free gifts if I take them up on their offer of a free issue: A 2014 angel wall calendar, an angel afghan, and a mystery gift. I also received two FREE personalized bookmarks and a tear-out blessing card, presumably so I can give it to the Israelites and save their souls.
Your Aunt Slugger is not disparaging the people who subscribe to this magazine. People are allowed to believe in angels and read about them. But your Aunt Slugger is DEFINITELY disparaging the FUCKING IDIOT who thought your Aunt Slugger was in this magazine's target market. Yes, I realize that these marketing folks cast a wide net to try to reel in a few fish. But this...this net was too big. A glow-in-the-dark dinosaur coin DOES NOT an angel enthusiast make.
I also find it hard to believe that angels support mass mailings, or that they would charge me $14.95 for a bi-monthly magazine about them, but then again, I am no expert. I took a few Renaissance art history classes in college, and the only thing angels seemed to do in the sixteenth century was hand out white lilies to the Virgin Mary over and over and over and over again. So really, what do I know.
If anyone needs two free bookmarks or a blessing card to convert the heathens, you know how to reach me.
Your Aunt Slugger also receives a great deal of junk mail. Almost an unprecedented amount of junk mail. I trace this back to an ill-advised purchase I made from a coin dealer. Your Aunt Slugger does not collect coins, nor does she have strong feelings about coins one way or the other. But I saw this article about a glow-in-the-dark Canadian quarter and figured this coin would make a nice, if not sophisticated, addition to my curio cabinet full of Muppets glasses. I paid $35 for this coin, waited six months to get it, and then also received a commemorative Elvis coin for my patience. I have subsequently received a number of phone calls from this coin dealer, including one where I was sucked into the conversation with tales of a special panda coin.
"Well that sounds interesting," I said. "How much does that cost?"
"Two thousand dollars."
So my coin collection still only consists of the dinosaur coin, the commemorative Elvis coin, and a gold coin that I found on the ground and initially thought was a unique foreign coin until I realized it was a Chuck E. Cheese token.
Anyway, back to my original point: I am fairly certain I receive a lot of junk mail because the coin people sold my name and information to anyone out there who has a product to sell. All of this junk mail goes in the recycling bin, but I do have to sift through it for real mail, like letters from my grandmother and pamphlets advertising pizza deals.
So yesterday I finally dug into my pile of junk mail, and in this pile was what may be the single weirdest item I have ever received in the mail: an offer to subscribe to a magazine entitled "Angels on Earth." I decided to open this piece of mail. Below is the text of the letter, altered only slightly to use my legal name, Aunt Slugger.
I received an offer of three free gifts if I take them up on their offer of a free issue: A 2014 angel wall calendar, an angel afghan, and a mystery gift. I also received two FREE personalized bookmarks and a tear-out blessing card, presumably so I can give it to the Israelites and save their souls.
Your Aunt Slugger is not disparaging the people who subscribe to this magazine. People are allowed to believe in angels and read about them. But your Aunt Slugger is DEFINITELY disparaging the FUCKING IDIOT who thought your Aunt Slugger was in this magazine's target market. Yes, I realize that these marketing folks cast a wide net to try to reel in a few fish. But this...this net was too big. A glow-in-the-dark dinosaur coin DOES NOT an angel enthusiast make.
I also find it hard to believe that angels support mass mailings, or that they would charge me $14.95 for a bi-monthly magazine about them, but then again, I am no expert. I took a few Renaissance art history classes in college, and the only thing angels seemed to do in the sixteenth century was hand out white lilies to the Virgin Mary over and over and over and over again. So really, what do I know.
If anyone needs two free bookmarks or a blessing card to convert the heathens, you know how to reach me.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
When Idiots Are Given Access to Technology
Here at Aunt Slugger HQ, we do still periodically find ourselves amazed by what people are willing to put on the internet. And here I am not referring to videos of animals bathing in time with an intolerably high-pitched version of a Bobby Darin song, because really, that's art. No, what I am referring to are people who do not realize that the magnitude of their ignorance is a.) not recordable by any standard cognitive tests, and b.) so outrageous it's comical.
The story I am referring to is, of course, the Twitter response to a performance of "God Bless America" at the All-Star baseball game. It seems that Marc Anthony, a well-known singer from New York, sang this song at the game. Your Aunt Slugger is actually familiar with Marc Anthony, despite being almost clinically unable to match a song with its artist; I was introduced to Marc Anthony in college, when a classmate in my "International Political Economy" class invited me over for a study group and played this song on repeat. So whenever I hear or read about Marc Anthony, I think about the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Anyway, it seems that our fellow Americans took to Twitter en force to bitch about "a Mexican singing God Bless America."
Some examples of these Tweets include, but are not limited to, the following:
So to my foreign-born readers who sometimes think their English isn't great, or who are embarrassed by their language skills, stop. Because here we have a group of Americans who were born and educated here, and they are barely literate. You are already ahead of them.
And with that, I am going to go listen to some more Marc Anthony and think about Alan Greenspan.
The story I am referring to is, of course, the Twitter response to a performance of "God Bless America" at the All-Star baseball game. It seems that Marc Anthony, a well-known singer from New York, sang this song at the game. Your Aunt Slugger is actually familiar with Marc Anthony, despite being almost clinically unable to match a song with its artist; I was introduced to Marc Anthony in college, when a classmate in my "International Political Economy" class invited me over for a study group and played this song on repeat. So whenever I hear or read about Marc Anthony, I think about the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Anyway, it seems that our fellow Americans took to Twitter en force to bitch about "a Mexican singing God Bless America."
Some examples of these Tweets include, but are not limited to, the following:
- "How they going to pick a got (sic) damn Mexican to sing God Bless AMERICA?"
- "Shouldnt (sic) an AMERICAN be signing (sic) God Bless America? #getoutofmycountry #allstargame"
- "Another disgrace (sic) Marc Anthony singing god (sic) bless (sic) America. Is he even an American citizen?"
So to my foreign-born readers who sometimes think their English isn't great, or who are embarrassed by their language skills, stop. Because here we have a group of Americans who were born and educated here, and they are barely literate. You are already ahead of them.
And with that, I am going to go listen to some more Marc Anthony and think about Alan Greenspan.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
At least it's not 1955, right? Right...?
As a white person, your Aunt Slugger does occasionally find herself in situations where other white people, assuming that because your Aunt Slugger is white she will "understand," make racist remarks to her. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
Periodically, there will be long stretches of time between these comments, and with the passage of time comes a mellowing of my opinions on exactly how many people are racists. And I think how far we have come as a society. I read books like this one and I think, "Well, at least no one is shipping himself to Philadelphia in a box to escape slavery any more." Progress.
And then there is the story of Emmett Till. Emmett Till was a black kid from Chicago who spoke to a white woman in Mississippi and was beaten beyond recognition to his death because of that. This was in 1955. The white murderers were positively identified by a black witness in the courtroom (which in and of itself was an event, for a black man to openly show anything other than deference to whites). The jury acquitted the defendants after about an hour, with one juror reporting that it would have taken less time had they not taken a break to get soda.
You read that, and you think, "By god, we have come so far." And I am not denying that there has been progress. The George Zimmerman jurors, for example, at least had the decency not to tell us they took an eighteen hour soda break.
But then there is this case. A black defendant, exercising the "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida, fired warning shots to keep her abusive husband away. She did not kill her husband. No one died.
And the jury found her guilty in fifteen minutes. They were apparently not in the mood for soda.
The point of all this is that I find myself once again issuing a
CRITICAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
If you do not believe racism still exists, and that blacks and other minorities are not marginalized by our society's laws, policies, and judicial system, you are - and I mean no offense here - clinically brain dead. To be a white person and not understand that white people are afforded certain luxuries, like being statistically less likely to be shot by armed vigilantes, assumed to be bilking the welfare system, or being profiled by law enforcement officials, then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. YOU are the reason a jury acquitted George Zimmerman. YOU are the reason that minorities are still haunted, years later, by Plessy vs. Ferguson and Jim Crow. You are the reason.
And you will probably dismiss your Aunt Slugger as a bleeding heart white liberal. And this is fine. Because at least I am not you.
- "You probably don't want to buy a house in that town. The schools are, shall I say...diverse?"
- "The blacks can stop complaining now that we have a black guy in the White House."
- "Is it bad that when you said what the charges were, I knew the defendant was black?"
- "I am glad that Barack Obama isn't acting like some 'homie.'"
Periodically, there will be long stretches of time between these comments, and with the passage of time comes a mellowing of my opinions on exactly how many people are racists. And I think how far we have come as a society. I read books like this one and I think, "Well, at least no one is shipping himself to Philadelphia in a box to escape slavery any more." Progress.
And then there is the story of Emmett Till. Emmett Till was a black kid from Chicago who spoke to a white woman in Mississippi and was beaten beyond recognition to his death because of that. This was in 1955. The white murderers were positively identified by a black witness in the courtroom (which in and of itself was an event, for a black man to openly show anything other than deference to whites). The jury acquitted the defendants after about an hour, with one juror reporting that it would have taken less time had they not taken a break to get soda.
You read that, and you think, "By god, we have come so far." And I am not denying that there has been progress. The George Zimmerman jurors, for example, at least had the decency not to tell us they took an eighteen hour soda break.
But then there is this case. A black defendant, exercising the "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida, fired warning shots to keep her abusive husband away. She did not kill her husband. No one died.
And the jury found her guilty in fifteen minutes. They were apparently not in the mood for soda.
The point of all this is that I find myself once again issuing a
CRITICAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
If you do not believe racism still exists, and that blacks and other minorities are not marginalized by our society's laws, policies, and judicial system, you are - and I mean no offense here - clinically brain dead. To be a white person and not understand that white people are afforded certain luxuries, like being statistically less likely to be shot by armed vigilantes, assumed to be bilking the welfare system, or being profiled by law enforcement officials, then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. YOU are the reason a jury acquitted George Zimmerman. YOU are the reason that minorities are still haunted, years later, by Plessy vs. Ferguson and Jim Crow. You are the reason.
And you will probably dismiss your Aunt Slugger as a bleeding heart white liberal. And this is fine. Because at least I am not you.
Friday, July 12, 2013
A New Entry in the Guinness Book of World Records
Dear Aunt Slugger,
What do you think about the George Zimmerman trial, and what do you think of its broader implications?
Sincerely,
Margaret D. Tomkins, Milwaukee
Hello Margaret,
It's funny you should bring this up, Margaret D. Tomkins of Milwaukee, because I was just thinking about this as I was reading this morning's paper. I was drinking an iced tea from Starbucks and reading an op-ed piece about how the prosecution hasn't proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and how he will probably walk. And it does kind of sound as though there is reasonable doubt from a legal perspective, despite the fact that the fuckstick is clearly a murderer.
And as I was reading this, I said to myself, "You know, maybe now, when George Zimmerman walks free after shooting an unarmed teenager, we as a nation will ask ourselves how we have allowed this to happen, how we have allowed gun ownership to become a more basic right than access to Sudafed, and maybe there will be some change -" And then I slapped myself, and vowed only to buy this hallucinogenic iced tea from Starbucks on the weekends.
So that is what I think of the broader implications, Margaret D. Tomkins. A young black man has died in an act of senseless gun violence, and in keeping with what has become a legislative tradition, not one single fuck will be given. Not one single fuck. An armed vigilante engages in racial profiling and shoots an unarmed kid, and our nation's lawmakers will set the record for the number of negative fucks ever given.
But I received a full-body pat down when I accidentally did not include my mango tango gel deodorant in a TSA-approved clear plastic baggie of liquids in line at airport security last week. So the lesson here is that you may actively seek out a confrontation and shoot a young black man at your leisure, but don't you fucking dare try to refresh your armpits at the airport without proper security clearance.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
What do you think about the George Zimmerman trial, and what do you think of its broader implications?
Sincerely,
Margaret D. Tomkins, Milwaukee
Hello Margaret,
It's funny you should bring this up, Margaret D. Tomkins of Milwaukee, because I was just thinking about this as I was reading this morning's paper. I was drinking an iced tea from Starbucks and reading an op-ed piece about how the prosecution hasn't proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and how he will probably walk. And it does kind of sound as though there is reasonable doubt from a legal perspective, despite the fact that the fuckstick is clearly a murderer.
And as I was reading this, I said to myself, "You know, maybe now, when George Zimmerman walks free after shooting an unarmed teenager, we as a nation will ask ourselves how we have allowed this to happen, how we have allowed gun ownership to become a more basic right than access to Sudafed, and maybe there will be some change -" And then I slapped myself, and vowed only to buy this hallucinogenic iced tea from Starbucks on the weekends.
So that is what I think of the broader implications, Margaret D. Tomkins. A young black man has died in an act of senseless gun violence, and in keeping with what has become a legislative tradition, not one single fuck will be given. Not one single fuck. An armed vigilante engages in racial profiling and shoots an unarmed kid, and our nation's lawmakers will set the record for the number of negative fucks ever given.
But I received a full-body pat down when I accidentally did not include my mango tango gel deodorant in a TSA-approved clear plastic baggie of liquids in line at airport security last week. So the lesson here is that you may actively seek out a confrontation and shoot a young black man at your leisure, but don't you fucking dare try to refresh your armpits at the airport without proper security clearance.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
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