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America's One Track Mind: Why I Haven't Been Covering Anything on the SOTU This Year.
 Google's "Spotlighted" News as of 10:58pm today:   | Some (albeit few) of you may be wondering why I did not cover the SOTU address. You know when you hear about something so often that you get sick of it? That happened at about 10 pm, Tuesday night. I almost didn't even watch it. (Basically, I was over it before it even began. Thanks a bunch, media.) The highlight of it, for me, was hanging out on Twitter with Keith Olbermann and the other FOKkers, joking about salmon and trains and drinking games, and droopy, orange Boehner. Good times. And I spent about half an hour talking about Bachmann before I was over that too. So yes, America, I'm totally done. (And it's really annoying that every conversation I've had since Tuesday night somehow gets warped into an argument over what he said. At home, at work, online, on Tumblr, on Twitter, everywhere. Seriously? Is there ANYONE else who does not want to talk about it?) Let me put this in terms everyone can understand - I couldn't give a fuck. It's an annual speech. It doesn't mean anything. It's Congress - how much of what they say actually reflects what they do? That's all that matters: what eventually gets done. We have 24 hour news to tell us about the state of the union anyway - though they really don't do that great a job of it. So if you're that interested in opinions and news about the speech, check out the oversaturated media, America. You're not going find any of that here. Not this year. There are way more important things going on in the world right now than speeches we've heard before. And I don't want those things to fade into the background the way things tend to in this country. We're trying to raise awareness. I want action, not empty words. While the US is battling over stupid speeches and spending tons of money reporting on snow storms, brutal protests are being ignored, oppressive governments are violently suppressing discontent, people are being murdered in the streets-- and that's just from the past few days. Violence is escalating across the world, while we're sitting around quibbling about earmarks and immigration. I'm more than content to spend my days ranting about fighting racism and sexism and homophobia and hunger and other things that actually matter. So I'll be over on Twitter or IRC if you'd rather talk about something more important than high speed rail. (Don't get me wrong, it's cool and all, and would create a ton of jobs I'm sure, but seriously, things like that are not a top priority by any stretch of the imagination.) Come find me. |
- Two more shootings in Arizona, one of which occurred in the middle of the night. A nine year old girl and her father were killed by a group of anti-immigrant militants who broke into their home in the middle of the night under the pretense of catching an escaped criminal. The girl's mother was also shot. Stories are just finally starting to circulate.
- The return of segregation in American schools
- Still more stories about people who think it's ok to hunt down other human beings for sport, simply because they don't have "the right papers," or they're LGBT. Like a gay activist in Uganda who was murdered, after Rolling Stone tabloid newspaper (no relation to Rolling Stone magazine) published a hit list of 100 gay Ugandans.
- Violent protests in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Venezuela, and in other parts of the world. Interesting how none of the big networks really picked this up until the internet went down in Egypt...
UPDATE: This is a great collection of links regarding the situation in Egypt. Today was Day 4 of...
(WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO.)
- FBI raids on internet activists and anti-war activists
- Bradley Manning and whistle-blower protections
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