Sorry to have left you all hanging for the past couple of days, but I took a brief respite in the guise of a road trip. I will update you all on that little excursion in an upcoming blog, but since Friday is once again upon us it is time for our weekly feature of Stop the Stupid!! You would think that since it is a holiday week on both sides of the border, that the stupid would at the very least subside, but unfortunately stupid abounds. So let's get to it!
1. The weekly stupidity from the "Stupid in Chief" shows once again that stupid flows from the top down. "We've got a lot of relations with countries in our neighbourhood!" Dumbass said this in a speech to the government body of Slovenia. It makes me wonder if the higher learning institutions Yale and Harvard ever wish they could recall the degrees they conferred on this moron. The man cannot put together a coherent sentence. Oh my God--he is so stupid!!
2. Last Saturday, the husband and I decided to run a couple of errands in and around our neighbourhood. While we are far from a Shomer Shabbos household, shopping on Saturday is something that we have tried to consciously avoid over the past few years. It is really nice to shun the consumerism at least one day of the week, but we are realists and we live in the modern world and as such, every so often we find ourselves perilously close to starving on a Saturday and in need of groceries. We live in an area that is often referred to as the north Jewish ghetto, filled with the most observant of Jewish families. On Saturday, these families can be seen walking to and from synagogue, playing in the parks with their friends and generally just enjoying the day of rest. None of this is stupid. On the way home from our errands, the husband and I spotted an extended orthodox family walking toward the driveway of their home. Once there, one of the men, decked out in kippah and tzitzit, opened the door of his black Lincoln, proceeded to start the engine and drove off with his wife. He had obviously parked in his friend's driveway, so that none of the pious would spy him driving to shul. An hour later, the husband and I observed a young orthodox man walking home from shul carrying his tallit and his recent purchases from Shopper's Drug Mart!! Oy, the hypocrisy and the stupidity!!!
3. Christie Brinkley has been in the news this week, as her extraordinarily sensational divorce trial has begun weaving it's way through the court. Among the smarmy allegations that the former Uptown Girl is slinging at her soon to be ex, is that he engaged in a prolonged affair with an eighteen year old high school senior and that he spent much of his spare time trolling the net on porn sites searching for similar liaisons. At stake is the custody of the couple's two children. When will this ridiculous celebrities realize that playing out their filthy laundry in the public forum and feeding the insatiable publicity beast, is a prescription for years of psychotherapy for their offspring. Those poor children are going to pay the price for their parents abject stupidity. Stupid and so sad!
4. As I have already stated, a friend and I fulfilled one of my summer list promises by partaking in a two day road trip. Believe me, there is a great deal to relate, but one incident really fits with stop the stupid. As we returned to Canadian soil from our sojourn to the land of the free and the home of the Dumbass in Chief, we needed to stop in a Canadian custom to pay our taxes. Yup, the government of Canada dinged me for $18.00. As I willingly paid off the graft, friend inquires as to the location of the facilities before we proceeded on our way. We were directed out of the customs building and around the back. As we stepped over clusters of insects, a foul scent greeted us as we opened the ladies room door. The washroom reeked of odours that can best be described as emitting from some human function, there was toilet paper littering the floor, the floors were wet and sticky, there was no soap and the counters and sink were wet and grungy. It seems to me that my federal government could certainly spring for a minimum wage worker or two to keep their facilities in decent working order. I have an idea; they can use my 18 bucks as a starter to the "Clean Up our Federal Bathrooms" fund!! This was embarrassing, disgusting and stupid!
5. While there is no doubt that Canada Day should absolutely be celebrated on July the first as it was so designated, it was a very strange first long weekend of the summer. In fact, given that the holiday fell on Tuesday, there really was no long weekend. Many companies felt this disparity and gave their employees a full four-day weekend, but just as many enforced Monday as a regular workday and reeled people back from their cottages a day early. The solution to this strange calendar quirk seems simple. Allow people to take lieu days in exchange for working on July 1st. This way, the idea of a long weekend in July can be preserved and companies do not suffer from a day off. But NO!!! The government has mandated that July 1st is a statutory holiday, so working on that day is tantamount to high treason. There must be a way to settle this nonsense without the rampant stupidity. Next year, it gets worse as July 1st falls on a Wednesday.
6. Summer television has never really been a cultural bastion, but this summer seems to be far worse than usual for us regular TV viewers. In past years, TV watchers could at least look forward to a gem or two. HBO premiered The Sopranos and Six Feet Under in the summer and former hits like Northern Exposure began their runs as summer replacement shows. This summer is a wasteland. In part due to the recent Hollywood writer's strike and in part due to the networks' frugality, we are being subjected to disgraceful displays like Celebrity Circus, American Gladiators, Wipeout, and I Survived a Japanese Game Show! There are dozens more inanities, many starring "D" list celebrities like Denise Richards trying to prove to Charlie Sheen that she is not a whore or the Kardashian sisters (who?) showing off their overly privileged lives and their overly collagened asses! TV may not be important to everybody, but it is a vital part of our culture. I feel stupid for having written about some of this shit!!!
Have a wonderfully restful Shabbat all and hopefully a warm and sunny weekend!
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