Things That Need to Go

In honor of the many lists that have preceeded this one, the following is my current list of Things That Need to Go:

1. Media coverage of Brett Favre.

2. Jon and Kate. Not just the show, but specifically those two. They need to go away.

3. Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. Whatever her real name is. Her.

4. The Jonas Bros.

5. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

6. Toddlers & Tiaras. Come to think of it, anybody who tries to live vicariously through their kids.

7. VH1 and everything on it. Too much to talk about here.

8. Nancy Pelosi.

9. Kia.

10. Nancy Grace.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

And by "Forum" of course, I mean, "my apartment" as I rode home on the 15 bus, or as I like to call it, the "Ghetto Express."

First, a word about the 15 to set the stage, because you really have to know about it to appreciate the awkwardness of what follows. The 15 is notorious for ferrying every skeezball/coke head/homeless guy to and fro through Denver, not to mention those people who, for lack of a better phrase, are a couple of trees short of a forest. And more unique smells waft through its corridors than the most exotic smoke shop, only they all smell awful. I generally try to avoid interaction of any kind on the bus since, in my experience, it usually devolves into a nonsensical rant, a casual request for "spare change," or an offer to hook me up with some hash. So I either listen to my music or read the paper.

I happened to be reading the paper today. There was a nice old man sitting across from me who, during a lull in the noise on the bus said "Jesus loves you all more than you'll ever know!" The guy was probably senile, but I had to agree with the sentiment. He looked at a girl next to him and said "God bless you, sweetheart." Heartwarming, right? Then from the back of the bus someone shouted "God bless Obama!"

Danger! Danger Will Robinson!

There was a girl sitting across from me, greedily shoving a greasy pizza slice into her face while reclining awkwardly on her thugged-out boyfriend, who just so happened to be black. I only mention that because it adds to the awkwardness that followed.

This girl (who I can only describe as a wannabe white ghetto queen) looks at me and says lazily "Do you like Obama?"

EJECT! EJECT! GET OUTTA THERE!

I feel like it's important to note here that I try not to be elitist and I readily admit that I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box, but it was pretty apparent that the education level on that bus was somewhere south of "Rhodes Scholar." You know, the kind of people who are more driven by popular opinion than rational reflection and logical discourse? Yeah, them. And if there's one thing I've learned in life after dozens of discussions with drunks on the street about George Bush and/or the Bible, it's the following:

Low Education + Loaded Topics = Bad Times

Back to my story. I had my head buried in the paper so I pretended not to notice that she was talking to me, but she asked the question again, so I felt like I had to respond. I replied, as mildly as I could, "Yeah, he's all right."

This did not deter her as I had hoped. "Did you vote for him?"

Please note that now her boyfriend, who is both black and much bigger than I, is staring at me intently. "No," I replied. I was quick to add, in my defense, that I did not vote for McCain either.

"So, you didn't vote?"

"Yeah, I voted."

This was followed by the nice old white man sitting near her breaking into a contorted expression like someone had just blown wind in his face. He proceeded to demonize McCain and all things Republican. Pretty amusing coming from the guy who serenely cooed "God bless you!" to everyone who passed off the bus. But I digress. The story only gets worse.

"Why didn't you vote for him? Was it because he was black?"

By now the entire bus is staring at me. I said no, not because he was black, and made some joke about how he was a law professor and all mine are crazy. Nobody laughed. I think it was over their heads, judging from the blank stares. Joke Fail.

"Why don't you like him?"

At this point I wondered whether it was possible to rationally outline my problems with his health care proposal, or how the stimulus hasn't delivered the lower unemployment numbers as promised, or how introducing socialist agendas into a free market economy is a difficult and often ill-advised plan. After looking at the blank stares all around me, and seeing the girl wipe pizza grease on her baby doll t-shirt, I decided that no, rational discourse would probably not be the way to go here.

Instead, I deflected and said "I'm just going to reserve judgment for now, it's too early to tell. We'll see." Then her boyfriend launched into a monologue about how Obama was going to rescue America from the worst point in it's entire history (because, you know, we've never gone through an actual depression) and how he was the savior, etc., etc. I was finally in the clear. And none too soon, because I snapped back to reality in time to notice that my stop was coming up.

Just a weird, weird experience. Wow.

Random Thought for the Day

So long as latent biases exist in America, there will never be racial or gender equality. However, so long as special interest groups created to combat those biases exist in America, there will never be racial or gender equality either, and prejudice will continue to exist. In short, I recognize the need to end prejudice in our nation, but I think special interest groups created to promote a particular ethnicity/gender are a big reason that the prejudices they claim to battle continue to exist.

The sooner we can all just agree to refer to ourselves as "American," the better off we'll be.