John’s Musings

One of the commonly-seen aspects of basic cable is the presence of one or even several public-access channels. Due to the 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, US cable companies are required to fund local organizations to provide training and access to media technology and cable distribution on the local cable systems. Many times these channels provide an important service to citizens. These channels provide local governments with a medium that allows them to broadcast local meetings and other similar functions. These meetings are about as popular with the under-90 crowd as CSPAN-2 is, but they do serve their purpose. However, some of the content that appears on public-access could be considered some of the worst possible content that the human mind can conjure.

Point in case. I was watching television until the wee hours of the morning. Due to my rather drowsy state, I would land on a channel and watch it despite its content. One of these channels happened to be Fort Wayne Access. The “show” consisted of a darkly-lit set with a brick wall background. The “hosts” were a 15-year-old male and an 18-year-old female. Both were dressed in punk/goth clothes. The male “host” sounded quite gay, as he mostlikely had multiple oral piercings that gave him a quite effeminate lisp. Both of the “hosts” were not well-spoken nor intelligent. Some of their conversations caused me to enter a state of great distress and agony.

“Um, yeah, so, what kind of clothes do you wear”, asked the obviously unintelligent female.
“I, uh, wear punk clothes, because I want to be different”, returned the microscopically marginally smarter co-host.
“What is punk clothes?”
“Black clothes, baggy, you know”
“Faded with holes in them”
“No, that would be grunge”
“Nirvana is a grunge band, right?”
“Uh, yeah”
“So, what’s the difference between a rock band show and a punk band show?”
“Well, rock bands have lots of, uh, strobe lights and colored lights. Punk bands have a lot of red lights”
“What kind of lights do punk bands have?”
“Mainly strobe lights”
“So no flashing lights?”

It was like I was staring at a horrible car accident. You are shocked by it, yet can’t look away. I felt I was getting more stupid as the horrible excuse of as show progressed. I think the thing that bothered me most was how stupid these “hosts” were. Do the powers that be at Fort Wayne Access screen their hosts before they film them? Do they have to meet a retard quota when they find their hosts?

Maybe I shouldn’t get so worked up over such matters.

It was a busy Saturday at Kroger. It was also my first Saturday that I was scheduled to close in accounting. Work was stressful and busy, but I tried to stay ahead of things.

At around 5:30, I was adding up some checks in the accounting office when I noticed some of my co-workers enter the room adjacent to the accounting office, a room know as the countdown room. Since there’s a small 6″ x 2′ window between the two rooms, I was able to join in this conversation and chat with my friends while working on the pickup. We maintained a light banter until a 16-year-old coworker, who’s name is Trevor, walked into the small, crowed countdown room. He had been in a very bad mood all day and showed no sign of letting up.

Courtney, one of the girls in the room, teased Trevor about the fact that the whole room smelled like his bag of cheesy poofs that was sitting in the room. Trevor, looking for an excuse to get angry at anyone, projected an angry reply in her direction. Courtney told him to chill out. At that moment, Trevor got in her face and told her never to tell her to chill out. Courtney pushed Trevor back and told him not to get in her face. Trevor then struck Courtney in the chest. He kept lunging at Courtney, while the the other co-workers in the countdown room tried to restrain him to some extent. “Back off!” I ordered him quite loudly. “I can do what I want. I’m a f***ing cop!” he retorted, referring to some junior police-academy program he was involved with through his school. Trevor then stormed out of the room.

Fortunately, there is a camera the records everything that occurs in the countdown room. I suggested to Courtney that she find a manager right away and get the footage. She did so, and the footage was pulled.

Faced with the evidence, Trevor was told that he could either be suspended or her could resign. Trevor resigned.

I was glad that Trevor’s employment with Kroger had reached a close. He usually had a very bad attitude and a volatile personality. Most of the front-end employees were glad to see him go, especially, of course, after the above-mentioned event.

I came to work today with a sense of closure. I was furious on Saturday concerning what had happened, but I had time to cool down.

However, the general sense of closure we all shared had been revoked. Apparently Trevor’s father felt he had to make a trip to Kroger and quite loudly tell the manager that he felt that it was unfair that Courtney wasn’t fired (a.k.a. forced to resign) because she had “teased Trevor”.

Excuse me?

I may be old-fashioned in this respect, but I was taught (and I will always believe) that hitting a woman for any reason other than life-or-death self-defense is completely and unequivocally unacceptable. The provocation is irrelevent if you go so far as to strike a woman because of it.

I’m standing in shock as Trevor’s father is nearby, loudly explaining why he felt this and that was unjust. He said he is going to press harassment charges. He told the manager he was going to call the union and get Trevor’s job back for him.

And I’m nearby, livid as hell. Having witnessed this extremely disturbing occurrence, I know who was at fault. I know who was not at fault. The little wimp who hit a woman because he was mad at something she said was undoubtedly and unquestionably at fault.

And his father’s reaction couldn’t be farther from what it needs to be.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A gunman fatally shot the assistant manager of a pizza shop during a weekend robbery and investigators were searching for two men who committed the attack, police said.

Other employees of Tasty Pizza told police officers that two armed men entered the shop early Sunday and demanded money. One of the robbers shot Chad D. Brunson, 23, of Fort Wayne, in the head and he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

The robbers, who had their faces covered, fled on foot. Investigators did not immediately know whether they got away with any money from the business on the city’s south side, police spokesman Scott Tegtmeyer said. Tasty Pizza owner Rick Harkelroad said he trained his staff to give up everything in the store and not jeopardize their safety. Brunson had worked at the store for four years.

‘‘It was wrong, totally wrong,” Harkelroad said of the shooting. ‘‘It should have never had happened. It was one of our worst nightmares.”

The preceding story details something that happened recently here in Fort Wayne. Essentially, two men entered a pizza shop very early in the morning on December 31. They demanded money and then murdered the man behind the counter by shooting him in the head. This cold-blooded act has shocked many.

Working in retail, I harbor a small, yet ever-present fear of being robbed. Actually, I don’t fear getting robbed. I fear the possibility of some fuck telling me it’s his financial gain or my brain on the wall.

Armed robbers are highly irrational. For a criminal to come to the point where he’d threaten and even kill innocent strangers if they would have not complied with his demands, it must mean that he has lost it completely.

Given that a convicted armed robber doesn’t actually kill someone, the worst sentence¹ that he or she could receive is life in prison. Although the thought of one of these individuals being someone’s bitch forever sounds nice, I think that the punishment for such crimes needs to be changed. If a robber compliments his demands by displaying a weapon that appears to be perfectly capable of killing his victim, he should be put to death upon conviction. Not only would this deliver justice, but it would also act as a deterrent, making would-be armed robbers think twice and hopefully decide against executing the deed.

And maybe they’d get a job and work for their money. Just like the rest of us.

id f*ck it. The demon must be slain afterwards, ROFL.

Above is a comment posted in response to a documentary uploaded to Youtube. The documentary is about Abigail and Brittany Hensel, two conjoined girls who lead a mostly-normal life. It’s an amazing documentary, that shows the twins’ dedication to leading a normal life.

However, a complete moron viewed this documentary and felt a need to post a vile and filthy response–a response blatantly exhibiting vile depravity. I felt sick reading this and other perverse comments that objectified and degraded these girls.

Another example: About a year ago Michael Tremonti, brother of ex-Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti, was in a serious car accident and was reduced to a coma. Here’s what someone had to say about this:

I hope he dies, Alter Bridge is f*cking homosexual.

I was shocked when I read this. Clearly, as in the first example, we have a highly immature individual who posts horrendous comments for shock purposes. All decency is thrown out the window, replaced by hate, filth, and a good dose of stupidity.

Posts like these abound all over the Web. Sick, childish, and decadent individuals with internet connections abound. They post horrific filth on Youtube, Google Videos, Myspace, and other similar sites.

After giving this much thought, I can only believe that these trolls post this trash because they are attention addicts. They like starting flame-wars, as they have developed twisted attractions to them. Many people will reply contrarily to this filth, but the people who counter comments made by trolls only fuel the trolls’ deranged actions. I believe that there’s a “group” of young adults that’s responsible for a majority of this crap–individuals who waste time spreading poorly worded and pathetic hatefulness all over the Web.

In summation, I must state that I am beginning to develop a strong disgust toward these freaks. These individuals are pathetic pond scum who spend massive amounts of time online posting idiotic bullshit that incites anger amongst many. I have no respect for their idiocy, and hope that this practice, along with it’s associated subculture, will eventually die out.

While home by myself yesterday, I found myself in great need of optical and aural stimulation. I flipped on the TV and browsed through the channels in our limited basic cable package. I was clicking through the channels at a rapid speed, as most of them were static. Remember–we have very limited basic cable.

After a while I found myself watching a rap video MTV2.

Let me describe this music video. It consisted of a male and female rapper. He’s wearing huge pants, a long shirt, and tons of “bling”. She’s wearing a miniskirt and a unbuttoned jean coat with no bra. They meet at a party and then proceed to “dance” by grinding their crotches together.

I’m sitting in front of my TV in complete shock. Here I am, watching a rather sex-charged music video where every other word is muted, where women are objectified.
What is this? I ask myself. Why do kids spend money on these CDs? Why do these performers sell millions of CDs? There is no lyrical quality, unless you consider lyrics full of profanity, promiscuous sex, and violence to be well-crafted lyrics. The music that backs the rappers is usually created on a computer and has very little musical quality. The music vides that are created by these rappers usually centered around the following:

1. How rich the rapper is, and/or
2. How many dancing, half-naked women the rapper is able to have in his presence.

In conclusion, I must say this: It’s sad to see that so many American youth have such low musical standards.