Saturday, August 22, 2009

Driving a bus to hell, I see?

Every now and then I'd be Googling around the interwebs and run across bizarre news stories. Not the ones that are front page headliner news, but the random ones that make most people go, "WTF?" if they stopped to think about the implications of the ridiculousness of the news story. This week was no different. I give you this picture: Which, in my opinion is not nearly as offensive as possibly this favorite picture of mine, which was even used in last week's blog: But apparently is IS offensive: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090819/NEWS/908190370/1001/DART-suspends-driver-after-she-refuses-to-use-bus-bearing-atheist-ad According to the article: "Controversy over a bus advertisement promoting a local atheist group has found its way to the driver's seat. On Monday, the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority suspended bus operator Angela Shiel after she refused to drive a bus with an Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers ad on its side. Shiel, 41, said the ad's message, 'Don't believe in God? You are not alone,' went against her Christian faith." The article continues with: "Shiel, a DART bus driver for four years, now could be fired because of her refusal to drive the bus. DART policy states that drivers cannot choose which buses they drive, DART General Manager Brad Miller said. 'Drivers are not permitted to reject a working bus," Miller said. "It's a very fundamental policy for DART. ... It's an essential rule that we will maintain.'" And this: "According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, DART's driver policy also helps uphold advertisers' First Amendment rights. The union recently dropped a review of DART that began when the atheist group's ads first came off the buses. 'As a government agency operating a public forum, DART and all of its employees, including its drivers, are required to follow the First Amendment,' said Ben Stone, executive director of the ACLU of Iowa. 'Since DART managers cannot claim a religious reason to censor bus ads, neither can drivers.' Stone likened the situation to a government employee claiming a religious right to refuse to work with someone of a different faith. 'When you work for the government, part of your job is to respect the rights of your fellow citizens, and you cannot use your religious beliefs to evade that responsibility,' he said." There's a few more points in that article that make me raise my eyebrow, like the woman's husband's point, according to the article: "'This has been her faith since the very first day on the job,' Glenn Shiel said. He said that making her drive the bus would be telling her to be 'two-faced for the fact that she wants an income. To me, it's kind of wrong to deny a person of their job because they have a belief.'" Another interesting point is that passengers have been bypassing the so-called "Atheist Buses" as well. Now that everyone has sufficient background information, I give a hearty, "What's YOUR Deal, lady?!?" You're not driving a bus to a concentration camp! It's a bus, with a sign on it. How is it any less offensive than walking down the street and seeing this ad? Or the countless ridiculous commercials about herpes and the wonderful bicycle rides and kayaking trips that people suffering from herpes can apparently go on because their herpes make excellent river guides or something. There so many other more offensive things in the world than a tastefully done ad from an atheist organization. How is that ad any more offensive than religious ads? I've seen some pretty bad ones of those, telling me that I'm going to hell and assorted other things. I'm sorry, folks, I'm Buddhist. Your ad doesn't mean anything to me. Likewise, if your faith is strong, does it MATTER that the bus you're driving is advertising for a atheist group? You can use that ad as a conversation starter on your bus to tell people about your religious convictions if you want. Not that I want my bus driver to be talking to me about religion if all I want to do is get from point A to point B... but the option is there. The bus isn't taking away anyone's right to their own religious belief, it's a government bus. It's supposed to be unbiased. Your religion, whatever it may be, can also buy ad space on one. This woman isn't being fired, she's being suspended for not doing her job. I'm sorry, I can understand that if I'm a bus driver and I refuse to drive a bus... that makes me not a very good bus driver. Can any other profession just refuse to do their job and still expect to be employed? What if your doctor saw your cross, Star of David, or other religious identifier and refused to treat you? What if people in the military just said, "Fuck it," and abandoned their posts? Would you want these people to still be gainfully employed, while not doing what they're being paid to do? NO. But this woman still has a job despite refusing to do it. Why must religion be so overbearing? Why can't it understand the separation between church and state? The state has an obligation to ensure everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe. This bus is no different. DART isn't suspending or firing the woman because she's religious. They're not going, "Oh, you're not ALLOWED to drive this bus, because you're Christian." She did it to herself! Drive the stupid bus! Don't try to martyr yourself to some non-existent cause because you want your name in the newspapers and a "What's YOUR Deal?!?" devoted to you. Yes, religion is a touchy subject. But it really shouldn't be. The government, should NEVER say anything for or against ANY religion. And the DART policy of, "Hey, pay us and you can have an ad on our bus," is really quite non-denominational. It's not like it's advertising killing or violence against any religion group either. It's just an ad that says, "Hey, you don't believe in God? It's okay." That's about as non-threatening as an ad can be. What more do you want? Kittens and puppies? Religion, get out of government. Nothing bothers me more than when religion is used to explain why something should or should not happen. This is what irks me the most about the entire gay marriage argument. Um, gay people want to get married because of legal rights not because gay people are trying to burn down your church and everything it stands for. If your church doesn't want to perform gay marriages for the religious aspect, then DON'T. Why can't a gay couple just go down to City Hall and get a marriage license without the religious mumbo jumbo? How is that at all a threat to religion? If you don't want gay marriage in your personal life, then don't get married to the same sex yourself. If you don't want to be a passenger on a bus advertising something you don't believe in, don't get on the bus. Don't complain if you're late to school or work because you did that, though. But if you're paid to drive that bus, knowing the policies of your employer, drive the bus or face the consequences. It's not a hard concept. Especially if you consider the flip side to all of this. How many times do we all see the word God in our day to day lives. American money, the American Pledge of Allegiance, etc., etc. How do you think that makes atheists feel? Hmmm? Now that you've refused to drive a mile in their shoes, you know how it feels to have to conform. We're all equal. Our lives aren't gumdrops and candy canes, for us to function as a society we need to realize that everyone around us is different. And that's okay. We need to accept that people believe different things, people dress differently, look different and it's all okay. And just because other people are different, they not a threat to your own personal beliefs, dress, and appearance. And we're not all going to hell for it.

Friday, August 14, 2009

YOU CAN'T DO THAT IN PUBLIC!

Hello, loyal readers of What's YOUR Deal?!? I'm back and relatively coherent. I've been painkiller free for over a week. No, I'm not a drug addict but I've definitely been out of it. I actually barely recall last week. So the fact that I even posted a rant actually surprised me. But kudos to Mentos for her excellent point that was posted as a reply on my Facebook about how people DO eat healthy... but they also eat a LOT of healthy... and then they wonder why they can't fit through a door. That's a definitely a "What's YOUR Deal?!?" But, overall, I'm perfectly fine with people that are um... substantial. I'm perfectly fine with a lot of things, because I think that people have a right to be whoever they want to be, as long those substantial people do not crush me or eat my cat. Fair enough? I think there's a fundamental difference between someone like me that points out the idiocies that surround us and people who say... inspire this picture: For those who can't see the picture, it's of a bus with a sign on the side that says, "Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." Flying to the moon... very cool and overall gives people warm fuzzies and inspiration. 9/11... very uncool and overall gave people paranoia and anger. But, that's the overall big picture of today's rant. Shout out to my friend Lauren, whose Facebook status inspired me to write this week's rant about people that are publically retarded and inconsiderate. How does this even relate to that bus? Well, let me explain. Lauren posted something about people that just leave their clothes in the washer in a communal laundry room and that is unnecessarily rude. I've spent plenty of time in communcal laundry rooms doing laundry. Not everyone is cool enough to have their own washer and dryer or have the time to spend in a laundromat listening to the spin cycle or staring at their clothes go roundy roundy in the dryer. But then there are the people that just leave their clothes in the washer or the dryer for hours upon hours. Why? Who knows? It's not like it's a personal washer or dryer or something, where they CAN do that. I mean, hell, my clothes have been in my personal dryer since last night. Oooooh, shame on me. But, you CAN'T DO THAT IN PUBLIC! I know this. I KNEW this when I was living in an apartment with a communal laundry room. I knew I wasn't going to time it perfectly everytime to get my clothes in the dead of winter with 3 feet of snow on the path between my apartment door and the laundry room and get my clothes out exactly when they're ready. This is especially crucial when there's say... only two washers and one of them was broken... I would leave my laundry basket there, so someone who needed the one working washer would just move my clothes into the basket and leave it there for when I came back. I've actually had someone tell me that, "Wow, you're not afraid someone will steal your basket?" I remember looking at that person and thinking, "If someone is desperate enough to steal my laundry basket, they probably needed it more than I do." Not to mention, it's a PUBLIC LAUNDRY ROOM! Someone could very well steal all of my clothes too. But it's a risk I had to take to ensure I wasn't funky and wearing stinky clothes. It's a necessary risk to ensure I was considerate. That's that level of humanity that I think we don't have. People assume that just because they're using it, it's their's to do as they wish. You know those people that leave soap residue in the washers or or otherwise leave a mess in the laundry room. As if to imply, yes, this is a public space, therefore, someone else will clean up MY mess. And it's THOSE people that complain when stuff BREAKS because they're STUPID. It is those people that would pee all over the toilet seat in a public restroom. YOU KNOW who you are, you failure at hovering! Or the people that otherwise fecally decorate the public restrooms. How does that even happen? These are also same people that don't flush the toilet when they're done, leaving me the winner of Musical Toilet everytime I go to the bathroom in public. You know the game where you and your friends all go to the bathroom and ONE person ALWAYS gets the toilet with the surprise in it. Yeah. Thanks. You idiots make my day everytime. *thumbs up!* That's the point of my ranting. I want people to open their eyes to the consequences of their actions or even their inactions. But I'm not like these people and the Westboro Baptist Church: Yeah, the people that picket military funerals saying God Hates Fags and somehow that if there are gay people among us... random people die, space shuttles blow up, and military service members deserve to have their funerals desecrated with stupid? Sidenote: If any dumb asses like that show up at my funeral, I want everyone there to run them off in the most ridiculously hilarious way possible. Perhaps a contingent of gay people offering to hug them and "spread the gay" or something. Who knows? But I digress. I don't care what you do at home. If you break your washer and dryer or leave your clothes in it for a week, I don't care. If you pee and crap all over your walls and carpet, I don't care. I may not visit, but I don't care. I'm not going to say God hates you or blame you for all of the problems in the world. But the moment you prevent me from washing and drying my clothes or pee and crap all over a toilet I NEED to use... GAME ON! Maybe you think I'm judgemental for being so picky about what I think is the right way for people to behave... maybe you're partially right. I'm not that extreme. I'm not going to picket your funeral because you're dumb. People are focused on the completely wrong things. While people are picketing military funerals and blowing up buildings, we continually let people ruin our day to day lives. Given the option, if I can eliminate one "threat to our day-to-day lives", I'd rather get rid of the idiot that doesn't flush the toilet in public than the gay couple trying to get married. Or I'd rather see the idiot leaving the clothes in the washer for hours upon hours disappear off the face of the planet before the nice religious people that don't picket public places or blow things up. I just want my readers to take responsibility for their actions and if actions need to be taken, focus those actions on the things that matter. Because the inconsiderate actions of the laundry room lazy-ass or the restroom retard leads to further inconsiderate actions in other aspects of their lives. It is these people that are a threat to undermine the American family and marriage and whatever else that those crazy nutjobs at the Westboro Baptist Church and those organizations like it use as their rhetoric. So, close with: I hate your unclaimed laundry. And your poopy. And I don't think God likes it either.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Things that I just have to point out...

Sorry fans of What's YOUR Deal?!? I just recently had knee surgery to clear up a piece of floating tissue inside my knee. I actually have no recollection of much of this past week... I'm sure my friend Denise can tell everyone stories of how bad I was. Yeah... But anyways, being in a drug-induced stupor has opened my eyes to many things... Mostly things I see on TV because well, when one's knee is swollen and mind is drugged, there's only so much activity that can be accomplished. I keep seeing commercial for foods that are low-calorie, like those 100 calorie packs of snacks or the 50-calorie yogurts. But, what about the other stuff that's in it? The fat, the sugars, the Red-40s! Oh my! Or does anyone else realize that all that stuff is supposed to do for you is be the proportion control that apparently most people lack? Anything we eat can be 100 calories or less if we just eat only 100 calories worth of it. I mean, I can have a low-calorie steak and just take one bite out of it. And some of that stuff is just that... it's a tiny portion of what the regular one is. This stuff does nothing when you see people eating multiple packs of 100 calorie chips (which, YES, I have seen). "Oh it's okay... they're low-calorie." No it's not, you lumbering Kirby-clone! (Sidenote, for those unfamiliar with the Nintendo character... I show you, Kirby: Speaking of eating... one of the side effects from anesthesia is dry mouth. One of the things that they make you do before surgery is not eat for at least 8 hours prior to surgery. So... there I was, post-surgery... starving... and with wicked dry mouth. What do they give me to help? Crackers. Why, cruel world, do you give someone that's starving with wicked dry mouth, CRACKERS?!? Anyone in the medical community want to shed some light on that? Why couldn't I get jello? Or fruit? Something NOT CRACKERS? Sometimes I think I'm not meant to understand the world... And... that's about all that's been bugging me lately.... and by lately I really do mean within the past day or so. Drugs... they do bad things to the brain. Feels great while you're absolutely incoherent and calling people... but then you realize you make no sense and nothing productive has happened. Just say no to drugs... and give them to me... I'll take care of it for you. :) Kidding.