Daily Spleen — May 10, 2021
Pissing me off this Day of the Moon:
I’m feeling a little rough this morning, readers. Might have overdone it a bit last night, but on the plus side I’m much closer to perfecting my Old Fashioned recipe. It’s a Monday morning, and I’m stuck in 3 hours of meetings. Ho boy, gonna be on of those days. Anyway, on with the shit-show!
1. Early Meetings Monday Morning
Don’t get me wrong folks, I like my job. It’s a great place to work, I work with a great team, and my manager is fantastic. However, these 8am Monday morning meetings have got to fucking go. Not only is it easy to forget about them over the weekend, but it’s fucking Monday morning, so I’m even less functional than usual. Thank Dionysus for coffee.
2. Speculative COVID News
“We MAY see an increase in cases!” “We MAY see cases decrease!” “My foot MAY turn purple, detach, and fly off to Maui for the weekend!” Just fucking stop it already. Yeah, I’m looking at you, members of the press. This “journalism” is irresponsible at best and reckless at worst. We don’t need to know every time Dr. Fauci fucking sneezes. Please, just present the actual facts as we know them today, and stop speculating on case numbers and how things might look in the future. It needlessly confuses people into doing stupid shit like not getting their second vaccine, or discontinuing mask use. Does the public need to know what the CDC is predicting for the future? Yes, of course, but for fucks sake, make it blatantly obvious in the fucking headline. Dumbasses are looking for any and every excuse to remove masks and social distancing, and we need to not give them that ammunition until it’s actually safe for them to do so.
3. Racist Bullshit about black hairstyles
Once you get a few paragraphs into that, you realize just how shitty people are about other people’s fucking hair. Seriously, Walmart, why are the black hair products locked up when equivalently priced products marketed to white people are out on the shelves? On what fucking planet does someone’s boss get to dictate whether or not their hair is too “urban?” The examples in the article are too numerous to repeat here, but you get the idea. For fuck’s sake, let people just live their fucking lives! Their hair is their business, and unless it’s a sanitary concern (like in a restaurant kitchen) keep your fucking opinions to yourself. And if your corporate appearance guidelines don’t include affordances for EVERY fucking type of hair and type of person, rip them the fuck out and start over, preferably after actually ASKING some people of color what would be acceptable guidelines both culturally and physically. For Odin’s sake, I’m a white guys and I shouldn’t even be talking about this, but something has to be said to my racist white colleagues. Get over your racist bullshit and let people be who they are. Fuckers.
4. Joss Whedon Even More of an Asshole than before
Quick one here: Just saw a story pop up that Joss Whedon was apparently threatening Gal Gadot’s career on the set of Justice League. Apparently Gal stood up to him, as she absolutely should. This is the same Joss Whedon who’s ex-wife published a letter about his martial infidelities, and who also mistreated Ray Fisher, Charisma Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg and Amber Benson. Honestly, the guy seems like such a prick I hope his career ends up with him making shitty B-movies because nobody worth a damn will work with him anymore. Seriously, every time I watch Firefly or Serenity now I get a bad taste in my mouth because it was made by this fucker. Ugh.
5. The general lack of security around basic US infrastructure
So, apparently Russian criminal hackers have managed to ransomware major systems controlling the Colonial gas pipeline, which has stopped pipeline operation and will likely affect fuel prices up and down the East Coast. My question is, when are we, as a nation, going to treat our critical infrastructure as something we need to secure and protect? Between the general increase in cyberattacks every year, and the number of stories coming out about either a lack of security or actual successful attacks against important infrastructure like the power grid, you would think the US would be battening down the hatches and making things harder for these guys to break in and do shit like this. We’re lucky that THIS time the attack wasn’t physically destructive. It’s only a matter of time until someone creates an actual destructive attack targeting the control software of a pipeline or the power grid, which could have major consequences, including loss of life. Get your shit together, America. Biden, this should be on your fucking radar. Congress, you should be throwing an absolute fit about this shit. If we don’t regulate this, Russia or China will regulate it for us, destructively.
