Things I Don't "Get"

So I know I whined about this on Facebook, but how can Cheney go on national TV and brag about how he was a big proponent of waterboarding while in the White House and not immediately be tried as a war criminal? I mean, if memory serves me correctly, didn’t we prosecute Japanese military leaders over this exact same thing? It’s vile and insane that we’ve degraded ourselves so much that we turn a blind eye to stuff like this; I mean, I know Kissinger should be tried, too, but it doesn’t take a psychologist to see that crap like this poisons a nation’s soul. And if the above doesn’t do it, then…

Goldman Sachs’ bonuses. Even after all of the previous outrage over other companies doing this, after all the bailout money they took, after everything, Goldman Sachs still thought it was okay to pay out $20 Billion in bonuses! That’s BILLION, not million. Disgusting! Doonesbury actually had a good strip on this. The first five panels have Obama raging to his advisors about the whole thing and then insisting that the Goldman Sachs guys be brought in so he can explain AGAIN. So in the last panel you have Obama, off-panel, saying, “NOW do you get it?” and seated around the table are the Goldman Sachs guys, as pigs, looking around, saying, “Uh…oink?” “Oink me.” thinking “What the oink?” etc. Classic. But seriously, now I know what it must have been like to be living in Rome in the final days—with the slavish, selfish, greed and corruption. That, or “Animal Farm.” Speaking of animals…

Judge Judy. One night, after being cable-less after finally getting fed up w/Comcast, I was home, sick, and needing some background noise on while I laid on the couch feeling sorry for myself. And since I only get a couple channels…ANYWAY, I only watched like 5 minutes, but it was one of THE dumbest and most appalling things I’ve ever seen. Infantile beyond belief. A grotesque charade, actually. I mean, I seriously don’t get it. Why do people enjoy watching this childish, mean-spirited woman harangue dim-witted yokels so desperate for attention and/or money that they would submit themselves to her ridiculous heckling? And the sad thing is that her “rulings” are legally binding! Somebody PLEASE tell me what I’m missing here!

But then it’s not like our “regular” legal system is any less bizarre. I read that a Chicago judge recently ruled that a former firefighter, and admitted arsonist, is still entitled to his $50K annual pension because, as the judge put it, his arsons were wholly separate from his firefighting. Well, gawd, I hope so! I guess it’s kind of like reason is wholly separate from too many people’s thought processes these days.

Which reminds me of something else I don’t get. People who think laws and rules don’t apply to them. I won’t even mention the swerving and/or driving too fast and/or driving too slow fuckheads who think THEY can talk on their cells while driving, but what about people who think it’s okay for THEM to use the 10 items or less express lane with 14 items? I was behind this mixed-race yuppie SF couple—with the metrosexual boyfriend wearing a Peter Pan hat that, no, does NOT make you look hip, it just makes you look like a homo—and despite all of my passive-aggressive huffing and sighing, they never bothered to look back at me so I could give them stink eye and shake my head disdainfully at their blatant disregard for everyone else in the express lane, because, well, it’s only 4 more items and actually who knows what they were thinking. I think it’s just simple arrogance. I mean, I’m sick of people saying I’m “mean” for telling the truth and yet clueless arrogant yup cups like this get to say “F you!” to everyone else standing in line while the bored Cala clerk—lucky to still have a job, I guess, in this economy—doesn’t bother to call them on their shit.

I was thinking it might be fun to start up convos with these types of people, pretending I’m a sociology or psychology grad student, and ask them why it is they think they don’t have to live by the rules everyone else does or just why they do the incredibly evil and/or stupid things they do. I could ask the horrible parents why they thought it was okay to bring their VERY young children to a graphically violent, R-rated movie. I could ask the argumentative old man who cut in front of me at Walgreen’s why he continues to argue about the 99 cent bottled water that is not 88 cents, but rather 88 cents is what he’s saving, why he’s still arguing about it after having it explained to him, rather than either sticking a crowbar in his wallet for another 11 cents or just giving up on it instead of making me wait even longer. Maybe if I did that, THEN I would start understanding. THEN I would “get it.” But, in actuality, I’d probably just get beaten up.