What’s Buggin’ the Penguin Part 2

A few weeks ago I talked about a segment that Maqz and I do on our podcast “Countless Screaming Argonauts” called “What’s bugging Maqz and the Penguin” where we talk about the things we experience that bother us. In this post, I talked about a few but now in this post Christmas edition I would like to ruminate on a few more if you will indulge me.

During this last couple of weeks I got to see some TV which is unusual because we got rid of cable and mostly internet stream stuff. Watching TV however exposes us to commercials and one in particular has been bothering me. Several times over the last couple of years a football or baseball player has compared himself to a soldier in some sort of way and this has raised the ire of the American public. Whether the sports figure calls his sport going to war or says you don’t boo your team because we are hero’s, etc, all of this is nonsense and an affront to our sensibilities of the seriousness of wars and its implications. The sports figures have stepped over a line and are rightly called to task about that. However right now there is a Dodge Challenger commercial in regular potation where a British army in Revolutionary uniforms is run over by a George Washington character and the tagline is something like “at least we got freedom and cars right” and it makes me gag. Here we are reducing the essence of the War for our freedoms as equal to our love of cars. Please Dodge, give us a break. And even more so, why isn’t there an outcry about this. It is a disgrace.

Number two on my agenda of things bugging me, is this most recent snowstorm we had over the Christmas holiday and all the pronouncements on the news during the talking head banter segment where some goofball news reader says something like “so where is all that global warming they are talking about?” Look, I am no expert. I am somewhat well read on the subject but have not fully formed an opinion on it yet, being man created, all natural or a combination of both but I do know that the earth has been warming. I also know that climate is a multi-faceted process and that global warming can created more weather extremes not just hotter temperatures. So, if you mean it as a joke, cut it out, it got old a couple of years ago. If you are seriously thinking that global warming only means that it will get warmer, read something and get better informed.

(An example of the mind set that is just buggin' me!)

And finally, my hypocrisy rant for the day. Maqz and I talk about the hypocrisy we see in politics and society almost every podcast and it drives us nuts. Today I was reading an article about how an upcoming GOP Conservative Political Action Conference is being boycotted by a growing number of conservative groups because one group invited to participate is GOProud, a group of fiscally conservative Republicans who are gay. It is felt that that group is undermining the military (DADT repeal) and undermining the sanctity of marriage. Let me just spend a moment addressing that last thought. My dad served his country proudly and I know many people who did and continue to do so and at ANY time, to question their desire to serve this country and to call into doubt their commitment because of their sexuality, their race or religion or any other unrelated factor is hypocrisy at its greatest. And for any of you who feel that gays or gay marriage undermines the sanctity of that institution, think about all your brothers and sisters who are divorced, who cheated on their spouses or engaged in any other of this type behavior and look me in the eye and defend that as NOT undermining your goals. Self serving hypocrisy is dirty. It makes me gag.

Happy New Year to All!!