People who know me know that I can come across sometimes as extremely cold and unsympathetic. "Shut your hole and suck it up," is one of my favorite phrases, and one that often applies to myself when I catch myself acting like a mopey wuss. Because most people in this country -- including at least 80 percent of those people on public aid and welfare -- could make better lives for themselves. They're just too lazy or selfish to do so.
There are people in my life who have done so. But their stories are private.
Here's a family that proves my point. They came to the United States as illegal immigrants. They became legal citizens. They supported themselves largely by going through other people's garbage to find recyclable cans and bottles -- scavenging 365 days a year for decades at a time, and putting three children through college. And not once have they ever applied for public aid or welfare.
Contrast that to all those people on welfare who can't pay rent because they spent it on crack, and who continue to add to their problems by having kids that they can't take care of and end up abusing. People who grew up in this country and were born with the advantage of knowing the language and having a free public education.
And here's a guy who has no arms, legs -- or even elbows or knees. Yet he was a champion wrestler in high school and college and is now training to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Contrast Kyle to every fat person out there who whines about how they can't lose weight or get in shape. For fuck's sake. This guy has no forearms and he can still bench press 360 pounds.
So when you wonder why I refuse to give money to a homless person on the street? It's because I know that they're there because it's their fault. And that they could do better if they wanted to -- without my help. And they won't ever improve their lives, whether or not I help them, until they decide they want to.
And to be perfectly fair, I'm as bad as these whiners. I could have done so much better with my life, considering the advantages I've been given. And that's why, if any of you ever hear me whining about my life, please. Just kick me in the balls as hard as you can.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Violence, Violence, and Women
First the serious stuff. A month ago in New York City, a pretty 25-year-old graduate student in criminology, Imette St. Guillen, disappeared after a night of heavy drinking from a bar in Manhattan’s Soho/Lower East Side neighborhood, only to be found days later on a desolate stretch of a remote Brooklyn road. She had been raped, beaten and murdered, and the prime suspect now appears to be a bouncer at the bar where she was last seen alive, an ex-con with a history of violence who apparently had been asked by the bartender to throw St. Guillen out.
There’s no doubt that this is a tragedy, and not unexpectedly, the spectacle of a young pretty woman with a bright smile and sparkling eyes being the victim of a brutal crime has led to a number of kneejerk reactions from New York-area lawmakers. One City Council proposal calls would remove a prohibition on off-duty NYPD officers to work as bouncers or security in uniform on their off hours, an act so incredibly stupid that the police commissioner himself rejected it out of hand: such a law would directly contradict an existing state law that bars cops from having any economic ties – including employment – with a bar. You’d think a city lawmaker would know better than to propose something that clashes with state law – a law that actually makes sense, by the way, since the potential conflicts of interest are obvious and plentiful.
But the stupider law is one that would mandate that any NY bar install security cameras at their entrances/exits. The rallying cry – especially popular with young pretty women interviewed on the street for some reason – is that this would prevent young upwardly mobile pretty girls from ever being raped and murdered again. As if the reason Imette was killed because nobody saw her leaving the bar.
You know how Imette’s murder could have been prevented? It could have been prevented if Imette’s friend hadn’t left her obviously drunk companion to fend for herself after a night of drinking at 3 a.m. and instead looked after her. And most of all, it could have been prevented if Imette herself hadn’t gotten herself so sloshingly drunk in public. I mean, this woman had to be thrown out of a Lower East Side bar. You know how incredibly fucked up beyond recognition you have to be to get thrown out of a bar in that neighborhood? Head down there any weekend night and there are loud inebriated young people staggering around, puking, screaming, giggling, fornicating, etc. The fact that she was causing a disturbance bigger than that means that she was worse off than they.
Imette wasn't killed because nobody saw her leave or saw the bartender with his hands on her. She was killed because previously she had made such a total ass of herself that everyone who did see her leaving or being thrown out thought, "What a total moron. What a killjoy. Good riddance."
That's a terrible thought, isn't it? But hindsight is a luxury; if you'd been there, you probably would have thought the same thing.
You’d think a graduate student of criminology would be more aware of crime prevention techniques. Then again, a lot of doctors are fat, chain-smoking, out-of-shape lushes, too. Ever since Rudy Giulliani cleaned up New York and made it safer and cleaner, people have been getting careless about living in the big city. This might explain why Imette and thousands of young people (especially women) on any given night can be found so drunk/wasted/high/whatever in public that they are essentially helpless and completely vulnerable to any sicko who comes along and realizes that this is his lucky day. But boys and girls, this is still one of the largest cities in the world, and that means there are a lot of violent, amoral sickos here and you can’t afford to ever let your guard down. Ever.
In the meantime, this so-called Imette’s Law will only give barhoppers yet another layer of false security that won’t actually make them safer.
The Wall Street Journal has an article about how the Ultimate Fighting Championship is becoming more popular than boxing in Las Vegas – both in terms of audience size and corporate sponsorship and advertisers. Boxing promoters are blaming society for this: we have become so inured to violence thanks to videogames and movies that we demand more violence and brutality from our combat sports, and that’s what the UFC delivers.
Which just goes to show out of touch boxing promoters are with reality. First of all, boxing is inherently more dangerous and more brutal than mixed martial arts. There is a common misperception that the thinner gloves used by MMA fighters make for a more brutal bout. In one sense, this is true: you’re more likely to get instantly knocked out with the thinner gloves in place. But a boxer’s punches do more lasting damage because the thicker gloves add exactly one pound to their hands, and thus each blow, while it doesn’t have as sudden an impact on a fighter’s head (thus not as likely to cause a knockout), has more of an impact (and thus causes more permanent damage).
In both raw occurrences and as a percentage of bouts fought, there have more deaths in the boxing ring than there have been in MMA fights. One reason is that an MMA bout is often won by submission through a choke or lock. But the main reason is simply that MMA places more emphasis on safety. In the UFC or in Pride, the moment it becomes obvious that a fighter is in trouble – he’s no longer capable of meaningfully defending himself, or a wound he receives is deemed to be too severe, the referee stops the fight. Not so in boxing, where a fighter who is clearly dazed and doesn’t know what’s going on is allowed keep fighting as long as he’s still on his feet. You have only to watch the post-Rumble in the Jungle fights of the great Muhammad Ali to see this in action. A lot of times, an MMA referee would have stopped those fights way before the fifteenth round or KO. And no matter how much Ali or his doctors blame Parkinson’s disease for his current physical disabilities, everyone knows that really, Ali just has a severe case of punch drunkenness that never would have occurred if the refs cared about fight safety.
But I digress. The reason why the public likes the UFC more than boxing is because
a) It’s more real. No one can figure out how a boxer really moves up in rank and gets a shot at the title, and no one really believes the fights aren’t all fixed. The presence of organized crime is still strong in boxing and the public knows it.
b) The fighters are almost always gentlemen. Listen to a UFC champ being interviewed. He’s gracious, polite, clearly intelligent. Fit for normal society. Even the mohawked, tattooed Chuck Liddell comes across as a guy you’d like to have a beer with. Then listen to a modern-day boxer. Most of the time, the impression you get is that if this guy couldn’t make money by boxing, he’d be out mugging little old ladies or knocking off convenience stores. Half the time the boxers actually have done those things. See: Mike Tyson. (I know, there are exceptions – Evander Holyfield comes to mind. But he’s the exception to the rule.)
But boxing promoters just don’t get it.
Women are frightful fighters. In New York, the subway is a common scene of violent or near-violent conflicts – screaming matches, threats of beatdowns, etc. I’ve been involved in a couple myself.
When the situation involves two guys, it’s pretty basic. An argument about personal space or shoving leads to threats of violence, shouted curses, and perhaps some shoving. It’s simple, easy to understand, and when it’s over, it’s over. There’s usually a bunch of other people there to break things up before they get too serious.
The other day, two women got into it. At first it started like an argument between two guys. Before long, it had dissolved into shoving, and bystanders separated the two women. Now, if it had been two men, it would have ended right there – sullen silences or an agreement to take care of it outside. But the two women kept shouting at each other. And the argument quickly veered away from personal space into other matters.
Woman #1: I didn’t do nuthin’ you fuckin’ bitch. I was just standin there, puta
Woman #2: You knew what you were doin’ you knew you knew you were in my space, I said excuse me two times and you kept shoving. I’ll kick your ass, bitch!
W1: No, I gonna kick your ass
W2: Whatever. Just ‘cause you think you got your man there to take care of you. He ain’t nuthin’, just some fat trash, I kick his ass too
W1: Least I got a man, ho
W2: Least I ain’t no crack whore, you crazy ass bitch smokin’ that shit
W1: I don’t smoke that shit, you can’t say I smoke crack
W2: Whatever, ho, you know I don’t do crack, and you just an ugly ho
W1: Yeah, I got some good juicy pussy here, you watch out or I’ll roll it up over you
W2: Like hell you do
W1: yeah, I’ll smear my fat pussy all over your face and roll it on top of you
W2: No, my pussy’s juicy, you ain’t got nuthin’ …
Etc. etc.
So to sum up: conflict between two guys:
Step 1: Arguments about the conflict at hand
Step 2: Curses, threats
Step 3: Sullen silence or violence or promise/agreement to administer violence at a more convenient location.
An argument between two women:
Step 1: Arguments about conflict at hand
Step 2: Insults, curses, more insults
Step 3: Violence
Step 4: More insults about hygiene, personal habits
Step 5: Remarks about love life
Step 6: Threats of violence
Step 7: Insults regarding sexual organs, size and moistness thereof
Step 8: Violence
Step 9: Scatological warfare
Step 10: Insults about shoes
Step 11: More insults about shoes
Step 12: Insults about how shoes don’t match up with vaginas
Step 13: Vaginas, crack, shoes, crack, pussy, shit, shoes, crack
Step 14: ???
There’s no doubt that this is a tragedy, and not unexpectedly, the spectacle of a young pretty woman with a bright smile and sparkling eyes being the victim of a brutal crime has led to a number of kneejerk reactions from New York-area lawmakers. One City Council proposal calls would remove a prohibition on off-duty NYPD officers to work as bouncers or security in uniform on their off hours, an act so incredibly stupid that the police commissioner himself rejected it out of hand: such a law would directly contradict an existing state law that bars cops from having any economic ties – including employment – with a bar. You’d think a city lawmaker would know better than to propose something that clashes with state law – a law that actually makes sense, by the way, since the potential conflicts of interest are obvious and plentiful.
But the stupider law is one that would mandate that any NY bar install security cameras at their entrances/exits. The rallying cry – especially popular with young pretty women interviewed on the street for some reason – is that this would prevent young upwardly mobile pretty girls from ever being raped and murdered again. As if the reason Imette was killed because nobody saw her leaving the bar.
You know how Imette’s murder could have been prevented? It could have been prevented if Imette’s friend hadn’t left her obviously drunk companion to fend for herself after a night of drinking at 3 a.m. and instead looked after her. And most of all, it could have been prevented if Imette herself hadn’t gotten herself so sloshingly drunk in public. I mean, this woman had to be thrown out of a Lower East Side bar. You know how incredibly fucked up beyond recognition you have to be to get thrown out of a bar in that neighborhood? Head down there any weekend night and there are loud inebriated young people staggering around, puking, screaming, giggling, fornicating, etc. The fact that she was causing a disturbance bigger than that means that she was worse off than they.
Imette wasn't killed because nobody saw her leave or saw the bartender with his hands on her. She was killed because previously she had made such a total ass of herself that everyone who did see her leaving or being thrown out thought, "What a total moron. What a killjoy. Good riddance."
That's a terrible thought, isn't it? But hindsight is a luxury; if you'd been there, you probably would have thought the same thing.
You’d think a graduate student of criminology would be more aware of crime prevention techniques. Then again, a lot of doctors are fat, chain-smoking, out-of-shape lushes, too. Ever since Rudy Giulliani cleaned up New York and made it safer and cleaner, people have been getting careless about living in the big city. This might explain why Imette and thousands of young people (especially women) on any given night can be found so drunk/wasted/high/whatever in public that they are essentially helpless and completely vulnerable to any sicko who comes along and realizes that this is his lucky day. But boys and girls, this is still one of the largest cities in the world, and that means there are a lot of violent, amoral sickos here and you can’t afford to ever let your guard down. Ever.
In the meantime, this so-called Imette’s Law will only give barhoppers yet another layer of false security that won’t actually make them safer.
*****
The Wall Street Journal has an article about how the Ultimate Fighting Championship is becoming more popular than boxing in Las Vegas – both in terms of audience size and corporate sponsorship and advertisers. Boxing promoters are blaming society for this: we have become so inured to violence thanks to videogames and movies that we demand more violence and brutality from our combat sports, and that’s what the UFC delivers.
Which just goes to show out of touch boxing promoters are with reality. First of all, boxing is inherently more dangerous and more brutal than mixed martial arts. There is a common misperception that the thinner gloves used by MMA fighters make for a more brutal bout. In one sense, this is true: you’re more likely to get instantly knocked out with the thinner gloves in place. But a boxer’s punches do more lasting damage because the thicker gloves add exactly one pound to their hands, and thus each blow, while it doesn’t have as sudden an impact on a fighter’s head (thus not as likely to cause a knockout), has more of an impact (and thus causes more permanent damage).
In both raw occurrences and as a percentage of bouts fought, there have more deaths in the boxing ring than there have been in MMA fights. One reason is that an MMA bout is often won by submission through a choke or lock. But the main reason is simply that MMA places more emphasis on safety. In the UFC or in Pride, the moment it becomes obvious that a fighter is in trouble – he’s no longer capable of meaningfully defending himself, or a wound he receives is deemed to be too severe, the referee stops the fight. Not so in boxing, where a fighter who is clearly dazed and doesn’t know what’s going on is allowed keep fighting as long as he’s still on his feet. You have only to watch the post-Rumble in the Jungle fights of the great Muhammad Ali to see this in action. A lot of times, an MMA referee would have stopped those fights way before the fifteenth round or KO. And no matter how much Ali or his doctors blame Parkinson’s disease for his current physical disabilities, everyone knows that really, Ali just has a severe case of punch drunkenness that never would have occurred if the refs cared about fight safety.
But I digress. The reason why the public likes the UFC more than boxing is because
a) It’s more real. No one can figure out how a boxer really moves up in rank and gets a shot at the title, and no one really believes the fights aren’t all fixed. The presence of organized crime is still strong in boxing and the public knows it.
b) The fighters are almost always gentlemen. Listen to a UFC champ being interviewed. He’s gracious, polite, clearly intelligent. Fit for normal society. Even the mohawked, tattooed Chuck Liddell comes across as a guy you’d like to have a beer with. Then listen to a modern-day boxer. Most of the time, the impression you get is that if this guy couldn’t make money by boxing, he’d be out mugging little old ladies or knocking off convenience stores. Half the time the boxers actually have done those things. See: Mike Tyson. (I know, there are exceptions – Evander Holyfield comes to mind. But he’s the exception to the rule.)
But boxing promoters just don’t get it.
****
Women are frightful fighters. In New York, the subway is a common scene of violent or near-violent conflicts – screaming matches, threats of beatdowns, etc. I’ve been involved in a couple myself.
When the situation involves two guys, it’s pretty basic. An argument about personal space or shoving leads to threats of violence, shouted curses, and perhaps some shoving. It’s simple, easy to understand, and when it’s over, it’s over. There’s usually a bunch of other people there to break things up before they get too serious.
The other day, two women got into it. At first it started like an argument between two guys. Before long, it had dissolved into shoving, and bystanders separated the two women. Now, if it had been two men, it would have ended right there – sullen silences or an agreement to take care of it outside. But the two women kept shouting at each other. And the argument quickly veered away from personal space into other matters.
Woman #1: I didn’t do nuthin’ you fuckin’ bitch. I was just standin there, puta
Woman #2: You knew what you were doin’ you knew you knew you were in my space, I said excuse me two times and you kept shoving. I’ll kick your ass, bitch!
W1: No, I gonna kick your ass
W2: Whatever. Just ‘cause you think you got your man there to take care of you. He ain’t nuthin’, just some fat trash, I kick his ass too
W1: Least I got a man, ho
W2: Least I ain’t no crack whore, you crazy ass bitch smokin’ that shit
W1: I don’t smoke that shit, you can’t say I smoke crack
W2: Whatever, ho, you know I don’t do crack, and you just an ugly ho
W1: Yeah, I got some good juicy pussy here, you watch out or I’ll roll it up over you
W2: Like hell you do
W1: yeah, I’ll smear my fat pussy all over your face and roll it on top of you
W2: No, my pussy’s juicy, you ain’t got nuthin’ …
Etc. etc.
So to sum up: conflict between two guys:
Step 1: Arguments about the conflict at hand
Step 2: Curses, threats
Step 3: Sullen silence or violence or promise/agreement to administer violence at a more convenient location.
An argument between two women:
Step 1: Arguments about conflict at hand
Step 2: Insults, curses, more insults
Step 3: Violence
Step 4: More insults about hygiene, personal habits
Step 5: Remarks about love life
Step 6: Threats of violence
Step 7: Insults regarding sexual organs, size and moistness thereof
Step 8: Violence
Step 9: Scatological warfare
Step 10: Insults about shoes
Step 11: More insults about shoes
Step 12: Insults about how shoes don’t match up with vaginas
Step 13: Vaginas, crack, shoes, crack, pussy, shit, shoes, crack
Step 14: ???
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