Just in time for Christmas

I begin with the end. The end of compassion, the end of humanity, the end of loving thy neighbor. Just in time for Christmas.

The ruling came down in Los Angeles that Good Samaritans can be sued if they are deemed even remotely negligent. “If, however, a person elects to come to someone's aid, he or she has a duty to exercise due care”, according to Justice Carlos Moreno. Perhaps Judge Moreno would feel differently if he was left dying in a burning car because his body is slouching a bit to the left (as a result of the car being folded in half) and God forbid the poor fellows standing outside of the wreckage be burdened with financial culpability for not possessing the medical know-how to treat the honorable Judge Moreno with “due care”. In American, on average, there are 250 persons to every doctor. So the chances that the person driving behind is a doctor... well, the chances suck. And this ruling sucks my hairiest nut because now, during our biggest financial woes and the most snow this country has seen pre-Christmas in ages, each person on the road has to think twice before helping one another out of life-threatening circumstances.


Other thoughts for the Holidays and New Year:

• What happens when a person whose family opens gifts Christmas morning marries someone whose family opens gift Christmas Eve night? Soaring divorce rates.

• What’s with women plucking their eyebrows? I can see most other forms of hair removal being useful for sanitary/sexual/aesthetic purposes, but eyebrows are only good for keeping sweat out of your eyes. Is beauty actually achieved by carving out a constant expression of surprise on your face? As far as I’m concerned, it falls under the category of “Unnecessary”, along with gigantic, fake tits, injected lips and stripper nails.

• Mayonnaise is probably not a good lubricant, but I would be willing to try.

• Text messaging is a double-edged sword. It giveth, by helping you send fast, spelled out messages of info, love or warning without the interruption of a phone call. But it also taketh away, by stripping your words to emotionless, empty-toned type that can easily be taken out of context depending on your mood or situation. Basically, fuck text messaging. If it had balls, I would kick those balls through it’s asshole, granted it has an asshole as well.

• On a happier note, if Amazon.com had a vagina, I would thank her gigantic, sexy body for making my long-distance Christmas the easiest, most seamless one yet.

• So, none of the gifts people have sent to me made it in time for Christmas day. The pain, however, has been eased by an ENTIRE DAY OF LAW & ORDER. God bless us, every one.

Take today to enjoy your family, friends and anyone else who let's you enjoy them. Happy holidays and good luck not dying before the New Year.

- Atticus Winston

Celebuturd

One of the worst changes to befall America under the Bush administration was the shift of culture that unearthed our long buried interest of all things rich. We Americans have always been fascinated by those with money; the Kennedy's, the Trumps, the Ewing's , the Gates. Unfortunately, during this new millennium we have done more than show interest in those with upper-middle class money and average marketability. We’ve began to idolize them, to accept them as more than entertainment and allow their primitive, experience-less, vapid personalities to influence our culture and children. It seems as though the marketing people have won. They’ve changed your collective minds about the Paris Hilton-types. It is like Bush, I guess, in how they can make poor choices and spew stupid remarks and we not only forget but we embrace them as new, improved human beings nearly every six months. The status of the “Celeb-utante”, one in which you have no skills other than being marginally attractive, is attainable by having a family rich enough for you to not work so you can just tool around town in the latest fashion and piss daddy’s money away like champagne. I am in no way mad that this nonsense happens. People can live their lives how they want. Hell, I could have my own television show if I made it to the fifth round of reality game show that is a spinoff of a reality dating show that is about someone who didn’t win the “date-a-washed-up-B-lister” reality dating game show. If daddy had been rich I might well be traipsing the SoCal landscape in really tight button-ups and sunglasses bigger than my Miata. What I disagree with is how our country has began to idolize this caste. What kills me is that we used to cheer on the little guy, pushing him to overcome the challenges of being poor and unattractive because he had heart. That is what Americans respect, right? Those who have the courage to pull themselves from the depths and reach their dream? I guess I would just feel short changed if the person I admired, the image I devoted time and money to embrace, only had trite life challenges like a Kardashian family argument or figuring out who in The Hills cast slept with my girlfriend. In an time when families are losing their savings, houses and livelihoods, this type of escapism seems poisonous to our culture. It’s knowledge without responsibility. A young person will have a harder time putting away savings if they are afraid to live without the accessories that their idols have. I just hope there are parents out there reminding their kids that it's alright to be yourself and live within your means. That real life doesn’t have to consist of petty jealousies and deception. I want to believe our society can watch these shows and know that just because they are named “reality” doesn’t mean there is anything realistic about them. Perhaps that is where I am short sited. As life slowly and steadily begins to imitate art, this recession may last even longer than predicted.