White people walk like thiiiiiiiis

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised by it all the time, but damn if my co-workers lean towards racism more often than not. Janitors aren't known for their reading, like that's a surprise or something. Anyway, last Wednesday a mammoth of a woman who dresses like she wishes she was a picnic table remarked in relation to a swimmer's cap, "Hey, don't the blacks wear something like that on their heads?"

I don't know if that's a benign remark or not, but given the source I doubt it is. Something about an enormous white grandmother who lives in the outskirts of a suburb referring to black people as if they were a rival sports team makes me a little uncomfortable. I stayed quiet, though. I mean, I don't care quite hard enough to make a thing out of it, since I'm sure the argument would devolve into it being her opinion and how she's not hurting anyone. Which is technically true, it's just words and words can be deflected much easier than a torch or a truck. It's just not exactly a good habit to start. So whatever. I won't have to deal with this person forever, so who cares.

Then, this Wednesday of all days, another custodian related Jon Benet Ramsey's parents being proven innocent to evolution. You see, sometimes evidence can be misleading, you know, evolution is a pretty good example of that. I promptly asked that he stop right there, but he went on to inform me that the reason that evolution arguments consistently lose to Creationists is that evolution has no real evidence. He has listened to top scientists, and they can't argue evolution over creation effectively.

Ten minutes after that, I was informed that, in regards to the Reverend Jesse Jackson's comment about balls, if a white person had said it... That's pretty much all I know since I left the room before she was able to finish the sentence.

I certainly can't say that I'm very well informed about other ethnic groups, I live in a particularly white neighborhood, and there's really only so much that owning Chapelle's Show on DVD can do for a white guy. However, I don't see why it's so difficult to just not be a dick about it. It's not particularly difficult to not use terms and phrases that are generally considered to be offensive or ignorant. It's not really too uncommon to see some white dude on the news saying something about Barack Obama's headwear or whatever the fuck. I don't watch enough Fox News. I guess I should, it's probably pretty funny.

I lost my point. Too many racists in Washington. A lot of them clean schools.

I'd damn well better keep up with this

I wish I was a writer. So hard do I wish I was a writer. The only problem is I keep starting project after project and after 10% or so is finished I just procrastinate it into oblivion. I think I'm relatively talented, I usually like the flow of phrase that I manage to squeeze out, but I get distracted away from everything too easily. I think possibly it's because I haven't read a decent, for realzies book in at least three years. Fuck you Spiderman for being so interesting.

Fortunately, recent events put a small exploritory booklet about Karl Marx into my lap. Recent events like Christmas. Well, I got around to reading it, and it was apparently the precise amount of jet fuel needed to propel me headlong back into literacy. Within the last five weeks I've read almost 800 pages, which might not sound like much, but for the most part the only time I have to read is an hour or so during breaks at work, and if I'm cognant enough to read before falling asleep.

Another helpful factor would be my work itself. I'm a custodian for a school district in a particularly sub-suburban town, and a large portion of my co-workers are unfortunate graduates of the same town who had the dire misfortune of listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin and figuring out which kind of liquid metal goes best with their pot. This, stirred in with an amount of time in the armed services, brewed a group of working-class citizens who don't trust a man with the middle name "Hussein" and think that time spent in college is a waste. Today, I actually had to defend my position on higher education being important. I had to bother to argue with someone who was against college. Another gentleman who works at a different school than the one I am at now had brushed off our thirty minute conversation about religious politics with, "All that college ruined you." I don't personally remember being a paragon of thoughtlessness before, especially since I had started college before having that job.

All loony old people aside, I'm hoping that I can keep a somewhat regular schedule with this blog, all I really want out of it is someplace where I can fart out an occasional substandard essay about current events, or governments of the world, or whatever the hell else it is I happened to be reading about that week. Barring any regular schedule, I hope that I actually write something here when I come up with it. I'd better save any idea I get in my head, because lord knows that I'm going to be famous for something someday.



Also, I have absolutely nothing against Led Zeppelin or people in the armed services. I don't necessarily agree all the time with Led Zeppelin or people in the armed services, and there are occasions where I will be frustrated with Led Zeppelin or people in the armed services, but I certainly do not hate them.