The Most Batshit Insane Crap On Sale At Urban Outfitters Today

I don't like to come across as a curmudgeonly old man, waving his cane at the internet and responding to spam mail with "You must have the wrong address but I'll keep in touch if you will," but we all have to reach that point some day. Today might be that day.

Urban Outfitters is the mecca for trust fund hipsters. Filled with everything you need to start your life as a young adult with an "alternative" lifestyle, Urban Outfitters is the result of capitalism realizing the marketability of '60s counterculture. As soon as they figured out that millennials were too lazy to protest but still wanted to seem like they had strong opinions, Urban Outfitters was born.

They also happen to be a great place to get instant film. Sue me. As a result of my weakness, I now receive endless emails from the hipster hivemind which is ostensibly trying to recruit me. I have so far remained vigilant in not clicking their spammy bullshit because no, I don't really give a damn about your new collection of distressed jeans, aged using the dirt from Lou Reed's grave. I did, however, give in to their Black Friday email because, hell, that's got to yield something funny. I was not disappointed.

First of all, Urban Outfitters considers "sale" to mean "reducing from a ridiculous price to a slightly more reasonable one" which, I imagine, is really any sale on Black Friday but we won't get into that. Additionally, the shit Urban Outfitters is trying to hawk on their website is clearly aimed at an intoxicated audience because who in their right mind would actually buy this shit? You maybe. So, without further ado, here are the most batshit insane things on sale at Urban Outfitters today (with links should you wish to partake in the bullshit).

Wolf Hood: Originally priced at $80 

Now priced at a modest $39.99, this stupid fucking wolf hood is sure to make you look like the biggest dumbass at the coven meeting for half the original price! I understand the impetus for making it look fake, but for forty bucks they could at least make the nose look slightly less like the tip of a leather armchair. 

Potential to last beyond first use: 25%

Magical Thinking Henna Badger Skull Sculpture: Originally priced at $16

Have you ever thought "man, I wish I had a shitty replica of a badger skull decorated with a henna tattoo to put on my table"? Let me answer that for you: of course you fucking haven't. But Urban Outfitters is here for those of you that do wish they did. Man, I only wish I lived a life where I needed one of these. Who are the people that do? What kind of life are they leading? Do they know something I don't?

At any rate, here's an additional tidbit from the product page: "Looks great on coffee tables, end tables or you can even hang it on a wall!" Because nothing says "welcome home" like this bad boy hanging from your wall.

Potential to last beyond first use: 90% (I mean, hey, once it's out, it's out) 

Metallic Storage Bin: Originally priced at $39

There's no way around this. This is a metal fucking bag. Excuse me. It is a (now) $30 metal fucking bag. Evidently they want you to put magazines in your newly acquired metal bag? Regardless of its intended purpose, Urban Outfitters REALLY wants you to buy their supply of metal fucking bags because not two rows down from this one is an "entirely different" product that is most certainly not a metal fucking bag....colored gold.

Potential to last beyond first use: 55%

Magical Thinking Moroccan Tile Tapestry: Originally priced at $49

I chose this one purely for its accompanying image. First of all, if you're going to buy a piece of fabric this expensive, you are most certainly not going to take it into a dirty ass lake. Secondly, if you're going to buy a piece of fabric this expensive, you most certainly do not own a canoe. Finally, if you're going to buy a piece of fabric this expensive, actually, you know what? Even if you wouldn't, no one (and I mean no one) is going to go canoeing like this. It's neither feasible nor comfortable nor sensical. This only happens in charming indie music videos and Apple commercials. This is not something that normal, thought-possessing people do.

Potential to last beyond first use: I don't really care. 

Magical Thinking Hanne Table Lamp: Originally priced at $49 

Here's a piece of pottery. Seriously, that's all it is. It is now, luckily, only a $30 piece of pottery but the concept remains the same. It neither comes with a lampshade (obvious from the image) nor a lightbulb (obvious using common sense). Those are two of the more necessary components of a lamp. Thus, this is just a piece of pottery that happens to contain an electrical wiring mechanism.


Potential to last beyond first use: 65% 

Do It Yourself: 50 Projects By Designers And Artists By Thomas Bärnthaler: Originally priced at $29.95

The only thing more ironic than this being situated directly below a $70 "ladder shelf" is that someone is definitely going to buy both. 

Potential to last beyond first use: 0% 

Tube Of Balloons: Originally priced at $10 (?)

I mean, yeah sure okay? 

Potential to last beyond first use: ???

How To Meet Women On The Subway By Brian C. Robinson & Eric Wong: Originally priced at $12.95

Oh, fuck you. Here's the product description: "How To Meet Women On The Subway is a hilarious paperback that'll convince you that the NYC subway is THE best place to meet women. Outrageous tips include Subway Swagger Secrets, how your Unlimited Metro Card = Unlimited Women, meeting Single Subway Moms, and 120+ pages of "expert advice" that will guide you through 468 stations, 600+ miles of track and a million possibilities."

I repeat: fuuuuuckkkk you. 

Potential to last beyond first use: 100% (unfortunately) 

Radiohead Tee: Originally priced at $34 and a smug aside 

The only thing worse than a rabid Radiohead fan trying to disjointedly explain the complexities of Kid A to you is a rabid Radiohead fan trying to disjointedly explain the complexities of Kid A to you in a t-shirt with the band name written backwards. 

Whoa dude. Fuck you. 

Potential to last beyond first use: 110% 

BOAST Classic Pique Polo Shirt: Originally priced at $72 

Let's put to the side for a moment the inherent fuckery and "yeah man I totally smoke weed" communicated by this shirt. Think about everyone you know who likes to advertise that they smoke weed. Would any of them want to do it in a solid color polo shirt? I mean, seriously think about this. It's just...like, a normal polo shirt with a weed leaf on it. Most people probably wouldn't even notice. This shirt is the sad incarnation of every thirty-something smoking a joint in the bathroom of his lousy middle management job. 

Potential to last beyond first use: :( 

Mighty Healthy X Baron Von Fancy Original Apple Tee: Originally priced at $34

In case you can't read it, it says: "Just because you live here doesn't make you a NeW YoRkEr!" Guaranteed to be worn exclusively by non-New Yorkers. 

Potential to last beyond first use: Depends on where you wear it. 

Strand Ryan Destroyed Crew Neck Tee: Originally priced at $44

This is a t-shirt. With holes. This is not a particularly interesting t-shirt with holes, but it is a t-shirt with holes nonetheless. If you really want a t-shirt with holes, I will cut you (ha) a deal. Invite me over to your house, point me in the direction of a t-shirt and I will go to town on it with a hole puncher for the low, low price of $20. That is much lower than....hey wait, this thing isn't even on sale. 

Potential to last beyond first use: Rapidly decreasing. 

Everybody's An Asshole and Nobody's Happy About It

Look to the person on your left and touch their shoulder. There's an 80% chance that person's a fucking asshole. The other 20% of you are sitting alone. And if you can't point out the asshole in the room then, well...

People are dying everywhere and everyone has a lot of shitty opinions about it. No one is happy with where the focus is and, for fuck's sake, why can't we just let the goddamn dying refugees into the country for a little reprieve from daily terror? But even that finds itself dividing into a million little asshole opinions vying for the attention of a billion massive assholes. 

Forget national tragedy. Forget international tragedy. This is a tragedy of cosmic proportions, careening through the cyclical non-structure of universal stupidity. You know what else is cyclical? Assholes.

The incessant caterwauling of internet morons with vomitous opinions about anything that steps into their realm of minor understanding is grating. And like all things that are grated, it's leaving little pieces of, you guessed it: asshole.

This blog, usually dedicated to in-depth (lol) analysis of issues both national and local, is utterly incapable of (and unwilling to be a part of) adding to the din of trumpeting assholes, all breaking wind unto each other in the hopes that one will be crowned victorious in the fight to fart loudest about Paris, Muslims and whatever the fuck Trump is saying these days. 

And yet, I too am an asshole. Trumpeting his own message into the noise-amplified room that is the internet, hoping that his will be the last. Because he who has the last fart has the last laugh. I guess.

Point being, your stupid fucking asshole opinion about the stupid fucking asshole actions of other stupid fucking assholes is worth about negative the amount of words you've breathed into life on your Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/YouTube Comment Section. The net worth of all these negative asshole opinions divided by the average laden air speed of vocal stupidity amounts to how much anyone around you gives a fuck.

In short, stop fucking talking and listen. If we're lucky enough that everyone buys into this model, we might avoid shooting each other for a day.

Have a great fucking night, asshole.

:)

(P.S. Don't go shopping on Black Friday you little capitalist gremlins) 

Conservative Christians Shout About Stuff In Raleigh

Last Saturday, supreme being and omnipotent architect of the infinite universe, God, was invited to Raleigh, NC to be stood with by several thousand angry conservatives with Bibles and lawn chairs. It was a VIP affair attended by North Carolina's Lt. Governor Dan Forest (henceforth referred to as Lt. Dan) and God's Emissary To The Corrupt and Wicked People of The US, Mike Huckabee. I've also been told he was the former Governor of Arkansas. Huckabee, that is; not God, but hey wouldn't THAT be something?

Also in attendance were several thousand very concerned conservatives. The rally, put on by the newly formed and insanely right-wing activist group, We Stand With God, was advertised as a pro-family rally. Their goal, laid out on their website, is to provide an "outlet for citizens to express their conscience on matters of morality, Biblical marriage and religious liberties."

They also say things like:

WSWG believes that citizens must stand unified in the spirit of our Founders who chose the Bible as the litmus test for law and personal rights.

and:

WSWG will coordinate with public officials so that the voice of the people may be heard.

In short, it's a batshit insane propaganda machine. But a batshit propaganda machine with the backing of uncomfortably powerful people. Namely, Ted Cruz and Rick Perry, both of whom attended WSWG's first rally in Columbia, SC back in August. Perry, admittedly, having dropped from the presidential race is more of a blowhard caricature at this point than a political driver. But Cruz, being one of the top Republican contenders for the nomination, strikes a much more frightening tone.

Conservative hacks clinging to the Bible in an attempt to win the much sought after vote of the religious right is nothing new and this rally is a sobering reminder that the system is still going strong. Furthermore, it is a reminder of how easily manipulated the religious right really is.

Packaging your rally as "pro-family" is, much like the Patriot Act, a hard thing to say that you're outright against. For people that already believe that the "American family" is under attack by gay men with large leather dildos, a name like "pro-family" is a done deal. It confirms for them every suspicion that Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have shouted into their cars for the past eight years: that there is a liberal agenda to undermine the morality of the United States and that Socialism is just an incomplete anagram for Satan.

To these easily swayed voters, Mike Huckabee and Lt. Dan represent an honest and oppressed minority in the United States, fighting back against Big Atheism and toiling away in the proverbial garden to sow the seeds of religious freedom that have long been withering. The narrative is an easy one to spin and has been spun expertly by conservative pundits and activist groups like WSWG, using isolated incidents of "holiday parades" and taken down nativity scenes to keep up the facade that there is a war going on behind heavy wooden doors. Framed as "the liberal elite," detractors to this faux-Christian charade are discounted as pretentious schemers who are busy trying to enact their twisted, Marxian vision of America.

Applying the unwavering morality of Jesus to conservatism allows for any attack on conservative ideology to be an attack on Christ himself. And who wants to attack the guy who brought a dude back from the dead? The fact that Raleigh's rally (and, subsequently, the WSWG web page) fail to provide much in the way of specific grievances beyond the general assault of their closely-held morals is indicative of the driving power of vague platitudes. As long as you can keep people angry about the manufactured dystopian state of their country, you can count of them voting for you: the moral crusader and solution.

It's particularly disturbing to see our own state's Lieutenant Governor standing with these whackjobs. But, I guess what else can you expect from Lt. Dan, an extreme conservative who had never served political office before now. But that's a scarier story for another time.

Sorry, But Your Walk Out is Fucking Stupid

If life has taught me anything, it's that a large gathering of people with a singular opinion is inevitably bound to produce something really fucking stupid. Because when an opinion is stated by an individual, it can be discussed and modified over time to suit nuance and to remain logical. But when it is joined by hundreds of other mouths, volume trumps levelheadedness and everything goes to shit.

App State Student Power, an organization with an ostensibly sincere goal, has proposed a walk out this afternoon at 2pm. This comes in retaliation of the Chancellor's email about parking and the adverse effects it will have on students and faculty/staff alike. This is nifty keen. That email was, and still is, a crock of shit and an insult to an institution that purports to value education over, you know, footballllllllll. I even stirred the pot a little myself.

But.

BUT.

The football game is at 7:30pm. Not 2pm when this "walk out" will occur. Don't get me wrong, the idea of gathering a whole host of students and faculty and shouting about how much this whole shebang sucks and acts as an unworthy and bloated distraction from actually important shit is, decidedly, appealing to my proclivities. But the game is at 7:30. PM.

The problem isn't (just) that this little rag-tag team of protesters and angry-people will be missing their mark by five and a half hours. Nor is it (just) that they will be missing an opportunity to make a larger impact (the game will be on ESPNU). The problem (mostly) is that a walk out at 2pm implies that people will be walking out of their classes. Otherwise, what else would they be walking OUT of? This is where the "fucking stupid" element of the whole ordeal comes in to play.

If your goal is to protest athletics' dominion over education in the modern university setting (namely, ours), don't you think leaving class to go shout about football seems a little counterintuitive?

Granted, not everyone will be in class at 2pm when this walk out occurs and you'll get a lot of people just wandering in out of curiosity and a whole lot of people probably wandering in to shout back at you. But, look, I understand what you're TRYING to do. I understand the whole civil disobedience, making a statement rah-rah-rah of it all. But it's just not going to hit its mark in the way you think it is.

Mainly, because the public values flair over fact. The flair is that a bunch of students walked out of class at 2 in the afternoon to shout in a field. The flair is that students and faculty directly violated their supposed love of education by neglecting it in favor of a fun day in the sun. The flair is that football still happened in spite of all this and a movement that could have made an impact fizzled out 5 hours before the actual game.

What matters isn't what actually happened, but how people hear it happened. And people will not hear good things. My advice to you? Push your protest to 6:30. Yell outside the gates. Wave pencils and pocket protectors and your spectacles at drunk passerby. They'll hate it, but goddamit you'll seem real fucking dedicated to education. Gather a big group of students and distribute them throughout the stands. Make a scene by getting them all to stand up at the same time and walk out of the stadium. Cameras will notice, stories will be written, all because the media loves a good controversy.

But don't walk out of fucking class. Please? I am not one of the knuckle-draggers commenting on the Walk Out Facebook page who thinks that "hur dur App State football is part of our proud heritage" (Appalachian State was founded as a teaching college, fyi). I understand that this whole thing you're protesting is wrong and that you are right. But what's the point of being right if you say it badly?

Stay in school, don't watch football and for god's sake think before you join a mob.

Lincoln Chafee: America's Saddest Sap

As you may recall, several months ago I implored you not to take part in the political theater and to vote based on the facts rather than charisma (Looking at you "every major news source currently fawning over Hill-Dawg's performance last night").  I still hold to that proposition and would recommend that you take a step back and actually do some research on the four candidates (and Christmas ham with a wig that was Jim Webb) that we saw on stage last night.

This being said, can we please talk about how ridiculously unprepared, awkward and hilariously out of place Lincoln Chafee was last night? There are deer in headlights and then there is Chafee.

Chafee, for those that may not know (read: literally everyone), is a former U.S. Senator from Rhode Island and the former Governor of Rhode Island. How he won either of these candidacies is still under investigation, though I imagine it has a lot to do with running for governor in a state whose population matches that of... half of Houston. Pretty much shoe-horned into his governorship because his daddy had held the seat 40 years prior, Chafee was seen as a fairly run-of-the-mill dude. Never much for charisma, there is very little to be found combing the internet about his time in the chair.

But that's fine. If all we were going for was bombastic politics and quotability, we'd be better suited just giving Donald Trump the keys to the White House and diving into the Atlantic. The main problem with Chafee is not his complete lack of likability, charm or wit: It's the fact that he has no idea what he believes or thinks.

Last night's biggest gaffe came when debate moderator and eyewear model, Anderson Cooper, asked Chafee about his decision to repeal Glass-Steagall, the very famous and well-lauded act that regulated big banks. Chafee, obviously taken aback and somehow not expecting this, shot back with something about his dad being dead and the fact that he was new to congress. When pressed further, he whined that Cooper was being "a little rough." 

Um...

Look, is a decision Chafee made over a decade ago entirely relevant to his current candidacy for president, ESPECIALLY considering Most Popular Girl in School Clinton's history with flipping on the issues? Well, kinda. But still, is it really the most important thing that could be addressed on stage? Not at all. However. HOW. EVER. Responding to a question about a major lawmaking decision (that, arguably, cleared a path for the largest banking and housing crisis our country has ever seen) with "Hey, I was new!" is the worst possible fucking way you could answer said question.

This just supports the idea that Chafee has very little confidence in himself as a politician and, certainly, as a leader. His entire political career has been one giant revolving door of political parties, going from Republican to Independent and, finally, to Democrat during his tenure as governor. When asked about this last night, Chafee experienced his proudest moment as he gleefully exclaimed that he had not changed on the issues. But this isn't surprising for a man who clearly didn't feel much on the issues in the first place.

Chafee's campaign is a sham. His biggest and most name-brand supporter (via his website) is Senator Robert Byrd, a man who died five years ago. He is LITERALLY polling at 0%. No one wants this man to be president, probably not even Chafee at this point.

No, the sad truth of the matter is this: Chafee, Jim Webb and Martin "Monotone" O'Malley are all dead ringers so that no one notices Clinton is running unopposed. Bernie was supposed to be one of these sideline shows but he gained startling support and momentum from the Internet and a quickly growing fed-up-with-bullshit population. But the Democrats, probably since she lost the nomination back in '08 to Obama, have been grooming Hillary to be the perfect Presidential machine, playing up her storied political history and womanhood. Chafee is just a step in the ladder of bozos Hillary is using to finally get into the White House.

Alas, Chafee, we will probably see you drop out of the race here within the next month (we suggest within the next 24 hours). Your most interesting quality is that you once did cocaine "several times" in college. But even Bush beat you to that punchline. I guess it's just time to hang up your goofy ties, hand in your sweat-laced microphone and make way for someone who has an actual dog in this fight.

(#FeelTheBern)

Why The Fuck Are We Still Saying "Redskins?"

Happy Columbus Day! Today, we take time to remember our whitewashed version of the "discovery of America" and celebrate a man who systematically enslaved and slaughtered the indigenous peoples of a land he, ostensibly, thought was fucking Asia.

Much too late, we are beginning to realize that "oh yeah, that guy sucks" and are slowly (very, very slowly) transferring attention and praise away from this murderous psychopath and back towards the people who, you know, lived here for tens of thousands of years before we showed up. But as much as we'd LIKE to give them the recognition they deserve, we're far more content "honoring" them through racial stereotypes and epithets. Namely, through using the term "redskins."

Indeed, we are still using this fucking term, despite the fact that it is 2015 and that the word literally means "Native American scalp." This is the equivalent of naming a team "Beheaded American Journalists" and shrugging when people ask what the hell is wrong with us.

And that's exactly what Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder is doing. Although he is taking it a step farther and outright defending his offensive bullshit as "heritage." (Where have I heard that argument before....I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.) In a letter penned in 2013, Snyder defended the name, citing that "we cannot ignore our 81-year history." Eighty one whole years! How could any opposing group ever top a number as high as that?

Snyder and his fans (read: racist mob) go on to bemoan their hurt feelings and how offended they feel to be called racists. Because god knows it's the accused racists that deserve the benefit of the doubt. Snyder's position is, quite obviously, stupid and despite his citation that "most Native Americans" don't find the name offensive (a study conducted in 2004, by the way), it still desperately needs to be struck from our national lexicon.

California has done just that. Yesterday, in an overwhelming majority decision, the California State Assembly passed a law banning the use of the term "redskins" as a mascot name. Cool! Awesome! We are progressing, right?

Tulare Union Principal Michelle Nunley says she brought the letter when she went to Sacramento with some students to lobby against the bill. 

“People feel very passionate about it, and the fact that we’re all Redskins,” says Nunley. “We don’t want to lose that opportunity to remain Redskins here at Tulare Union.”

Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes, because the world spins on axis made entirely of fecal matter dribbling from the mouths of a million racist morons, someone in a position of authority and power has a fucking problem with this entirely reasonable and long-due decision. Tulare High School cites heritage as well as the high cost of renovation as their reason to sticking to their feather headdress-adorned guns. Native Americans cite thousands of years and the complete decimation of their population due to disease, war and displacement as their reason. Who's to say who has more of a leg to stand on?

Look, it's great that California is dragging its population, kicking and screaming, into a world where we don't go around using racially offensive terms. But it is very little, very late. For starters, this is the only state in the union to do so as of yet. (It is still legal in 49 states to dance around in fake Native American attire and call yourself a redskin.) Furthermore, and far more offensive, we still treat Native Americans like absolute shit. 28.2% of Native Americans live under the poverty line, many of which are living in overcrowded housing with insufficient access to healthcare (Native American lifespans trail the average by about 5 years) and jobs.

The native people of this land are still feeling the shockwaves of the absolutely horrifying shit our country's forefathers inflicted on them for hundreds of years, yet we're worried that a few thousand drunk sports fans that can't bear the thought of having to throw out all their racist memorabilia and learn to chant a different name at football games might have their feelings hurt? Not to mention, we're still celebrating murderous psychopaths via holidays and currency.

There is a startlingly wide gap in our national mindset concerning the native populations that causes this issue to pass by us daily without so much as a glance in its direction. The fact that a national sports team (in our nation's capital no less) can preserve its highly offensive name with very little consequence thus far shows just how unwilling we are to address this problem. This is due to a mixture of misconception and conscious apathy.

In short, stop being an ignorant asshole and change the goddamn name already.

Who Will Think Of The Men?

Who will think of the men? The poor, downtrodden man who hath lost his reason to live. Who will think of the manly man. The guy's guy. The DUDE. Who will consider his world, slowly slipping through his heavily calloused fingertips and falling into the dirt where it is being used to fertilize the pansy-laced garden of our modern progressive age? Who will help these masculine men? Cast out by society and made to watch as their delicate, wood-smoked world is dismantled piece by piece to fashion an IKEA bassinet and brunch.

Woe is the man who can no longer be a man. Castrated, silenced and broken, the man must now sit by the sidelines of a football game where the players can no longer call each other racially offensive terms. Since when did teammates stop getting to be teammates?

Pity the man who has watched idly by as words like "faggot" and "pussy" have been struck from his lexicon, replaced with words like "person" and "frightened person." Their dictionaries, stripped of gusto and machismo, now languish in a world that forces men to read them. Where have the days of brevity gone?

Bros, Romans, countryMEN, our world of male dominated pronouns has come crashing down around our ears, forcing us to moderately adjust our speech patterns to deal with it. It is a bitter, cruel world that would allow such a shift. The world as we know it is coming to an end and all we can do is stare silently into the abyss for tears might wash the dirt from our working man's cheeks.

And chivalry! Oh, chivalry. Alas, we knew you. To where shall we turn for our social cues regarding those of the fairer sex? How shall we proceed in coital endeavors? Who will open the door? All these questions and more are now sawdust in the wind, lost to a world where manners and social decorum are no longer gauged by gender.

Masculinity, we lay you to rest in a hole free from frills, dug with our own hands and filled with about two inches of shitty beer. We lower you into the ground to the tune of AC/DC's "Back in Black" and say our goodbyes with straight faces and taut jawlines. Finally, we send you out with a 21-gun salute, aimed at a sky filled with fluffy clouds and smiling baby suns, products of our recently feminized world.

Men, how we shall miss you. Boots replaced by Toms. Shirts replaced by blouses. Deteriorating vision replaced by glasses. I just don't understand this new world. Why can't it accept our mindset? Why can't things stay the way they were? Why can't men just be men?

Some Advice for the Rotten Appal

It's been over a year since the Rotten Appal's fatal blunder heard 'round the campus and a lot has changed since then. Gay marriage was legalized (and, subsequently, inspired stupidity), Donald Trump became a viable presidential nominee (a separate, unrelated stupidity), and the Rotten Appal managed to settle into a routine that worked. They got into the groove and, honestly, started producing some not-so-shabby work. Which is why this is more painful than it should be.

In a recent article, the Rotten Appal attempted to tackle the issue of catcalling and sexual assault via satire. The article, titled "Catcallers Make Good Points About Hot Bitches", was not well received. Criticized for its clumsy approach to the issue, many felt that the joke careened too far into bad taste and negated its original intention. In other words, it's time for this week's special article:

"Fucking A, Guys; You Were Doing So Well"

This was not handled well. By anyone. Let's get that out of the way first because it's worth pointing out lest we get lost in the "he said, she said" of internet fighting. I don't know where the outrage originated and, quite frankly, it doesn't really matter. The issue lies less with what the article said than how the protestations were responded to. Herein lies my particular gripes: When presented with criticism, the Rotten Appal staff (not a singular entity, I am aware) responded with anger and defensiveness. This baffles me.

As a humor organization, you expect a certain level of daily ire, usually in the form of the offended most recently insulted in an article. These offendees are, typically, oversensitive bedwetters that can't handle someone making fun of the football team or the Greek system. In these cases, it is usually best to respond by saying.....well, nothing. They aren't worth your time. This case, however, is very different. In this case, you have ended up offending the wrong audience, shooting yourself in the proverbial (and, indeed, collective) foot.

What draws the anger of the public is often predictable. Were I to write a blog post about the healing powers of cyanide, I could rest assured that people would take issue. But sometimes, something, be it the writing, visuals or content, just does not click with people and the audience turns on you. As an individual, you can avoid these; as an organization you cannot. As an organization dedicated to creating content for an audience, you have a particular duty to a respectful dialogue. Insulting your readers is not the route to take. I found it particularly disturbing to see Rotten Appal writers responding to their audience with dismissiveness and indifference on their official Facebook page. This belies a level of professionalism I had thought the Rotten Appal was beginning to aspire to.

Look, I get it. You were trying to be funny and start a dialogue about rape culture. That's a mighty fine goal and I am proud that you are trying to use satire to tackle controversial issues. But the joke just didn't work. I know it may have worked in theory, but every writer should know that sometimes something just does not hit the mark. This is typically the part where you suck it up, apologize and try to be better in the future. It's fucking humiliating, I know. It seems like you're giving up, but try to see it as an opportunity to grow and demonstrate that you are, indeed, an organization and not just a club full of dudes writing fart jokes. Because you've evolved past that and people have noticed. We really have. Don't squander that on pride.

Appalachian State's Big Pile of Bullshit

The transition from an academic institution to a machine for football has been steadily happening since we, you know, did that thing. Despite how weird it is that we still collectively masturbate over beating a team once (who, last year, annihilated us in the most ill-chosen revenge match ever), we've gained a foothold, however loose, in the world of televised sports and have been making moves towards becoming an eventual powerhouse. Which would be all fine and dandy if it didn't come at the expense of the students.

Now, the dichotomy between student athlete and student non-athlete is a tale as old as universities and there is, admittedly, some wrong information out there that is often used to demonize the former. For example, for years people have bemoaned the football team for taking all of our unused meal plan money, sparking outrage at the end of every year. A couple of years ago, on this very blog, I debunked that myth.

But just because the football team isn't taking your lunch money doesn't mean that it isn't still calling you a nerd and running away with your girlfriend. In this case, your girlfriend is a shoddy metaphor for parking. In a recent email sent out by the Chancellor herself (read: her secretary), she enthusiastically described how little the university gives a shit about your over-priced parking pass on October 22 and November 5th, both Thursdays and both, ostensibly, class days.

The email goes on to lay out which lots may be used and which may not....for faculty and staff, that is. As for students, well....

Haha fuck you nerds.

That's right. Not only is the university relegating faculty and staff to limited parking (from which they must be moved by 3pm!!), they are also pretty much banning students from parking anywhere near campus, with the exception of Rivers Street until 4pm, under the guise of their "green initiative." This in and of itself stinks to high heaven and is the topic of today's Big Pile of Bullshit.

For a university that just hosted the fourth annual Appalachian Energy Summit, whose attendees included Robert Kennedy Jr., Appalachian certainly has a strange concept of energy conservation and sustainability. If banning students from parking on campus is part of a green initiative, presumably with the notion that this will reduce carbon emissions for the day, would it not be also pertinent to just, you know, ban everyone from driving that day? Why not cancel the game, close up the lots and tell everyone to sit inside for the day with the lights off? Surely this would be more in line with your "green initiative." But, of course, this does not fit Appalachian's hilariously bad narrative. The university wants to have its cake and eat it too. Maintaining the illusion that they are an institution dedicated to making the world a better place, unfortunately, is starting to butt heads with the goal of making big bucks and planting themselves on the front page of Sports Illustrated again. 

Appalachian has elected dishonesty and word games in lieu of being upfront with its students. Furthermore (and possibly worse), they have given professors a very clear message that they care about them just about as much as a few parking lots can handle, literally suggesting to them that (and I am not making this up) "...some may wish to avoid the risk of traffic congestion by leaving campus early."

Go on, get out of here. We're done listening to all your fancy school shit. We got some FOOTBALLLLLLL!! Are you fucking serious Appalachian? You're literally telling your faculty and staff to get the fuck out (albeit covertly) and make room for paying customers. This is the academic equivalent of "the customer is always right." 

Look, I understand that this is only two days out of the year, but it's indicative of a worrisome shift in importance and reveals an underlying narrative being concocted by the university to justify its own actions. Overt screwing over of its, arguably, most important asset (aka students) would be preferable to being screwed with a smile and a wink. Touting your actions as "green" is akin to turning the NBC logo green for a month out of the year and saying you helped. 

Is it really worth getting worked up over not being able to park close to campus for two days out of the year? Maybe not for me; I have an apartment parking pass so none of this really affects me in the slightest. But there are people who rely on parking as a means of getting to campus, often too far out for the bus to pick them up and certainly too far to bike. Shortsighted behavior by a university with big plans doesn't give me much hope that their ongoing game of footsies with ESPN is going to pan out and it certainly doesn't give me much hope for their relationship with the students paying thousands upon thousands to attend this school. Fear not, however, as there is a silver lining to all of this. If you are a paying member of the Yosef Club, the university has several nice lots reserved for you.

Happy Football Season, motherfuckers. 

Presidential Dinner Theater

Welcome, welcome! Please have a seat. I said TAKE A FUCKING SEAT.

Sorry, Trumping out there. Anyways, where shall we begin? Ah yes, let's start by turning off our cell phones, pagers and really any form of technology for the next year and a half. It's time for the Presidential Dinner Theater!

Every four years, our nation sits down, burns the popcorn and then bitches about this same fucking movie for an extended period of time we call the "election cycle." We see the same cast of buffoons (namely Santorum and Perry) say the same stupid shit and for some reason, we have the same gripes, as if this method has worked in the past. You get major news outlets publishing long-winded articles filled with all sorts of problems faced by one party or another. It's the same fucking drudgery every four years.

Bullshit. Bullshit never changes.

I'm not saying they aren't proper gripes. I mean by all means calling out Donald Trump and Jeb Bush for being misogynistic assholes is certainly proper; but is it worthwhile? The answer, as you may have guessed, is resoundingly: no. Because, quite frankly, the candidates, nor their affiliated parties, don't give a rat's ass what you or your cute little newspaper/Facebook status/blog think.

And, to make matters worse, the major news outlets (Fox News, CNN, etc.) also don't care what you think. If anything, they care even less. Because this is all one big fucking game and we're sitting at the losers' table in perpetuity. We are casting our ballot for entertainment politics night after night as we rage into our computers about how stupid Candidate 1 is or how out of touch Party 2 is. These people know what they're saying is bullshit, but they don't care because we eat it up. Whether we like what we taste is irrelevant so long as we chew and swallow it down.

Being politically aware is important, no doubt. If you want to sit down and spend days crunching the numbers and facts behind each and every presidential candidate (you'll be there awhile) then, by all means, go for it. This is a good way to handle the next year and a half. But if you're among the rest of us who just sit around and shout at the screen because someone said something that made you mad, you're never going to get up. You're going to sit at that screen forever, your angry spittle greasing an already well-lubed machine that lives off of your willingness to pay attention.

Stop listening to it. Stop watching it. Stop fucking caring about it. The controversy, I mean. Stop clicking on articles that start with "You'll never believe what so-and-so said!" Just fucking stop. Please, for the love of all this is holy, end the seemingly endless cycle of "mad as hell" pageantry. Every time you post something bitching about a candidate, all you are doing is giving them and whatever second-rate news outlet that published it free publicity.

The election cycle is supposed to be a chance for Americans to review candidates and find out if they're worthy of the office of the Presidency. It's supposed to be objective and it's supposed to be professional. It's not. I'm not sure if it ever was, to be entirely honest. But that doesn't stop us from complaining that it isn't. Even me.

If you care about democracy and America and all that howdy-doody shit, you'll step away from the show and form opinions based on facts instead. About both sides of the aisle. About sides that don't yet have an aisle. You'll go for a walk and think about what it means to be a leader. You'll come home and you'll do actual research and make decisions based on facts and figures.

For now, you can find the emergency exit doors to your left and right. Please use them.

An Open Letter to College Students on Suicide

The collegiate epoch is, understandably, ridden with stress and confusion. Nothing quite prepares you for it; not the incessant and irritatingly light-hearted college prep books nor the conspicuously censored stories from your parents' experiences. Buzzfeed articles, littered with topical gifs and vague advice on not gaining too much weight your freshman year, are more of a hindrance than a help and you'll quickly find that that romanticized college atmosphere born of listicles is a myth conjured to justify the inordinate amount of stress that will be thrust upon you.

This is not an attempt to scare you or dissuade you from coming to college. Quite the opposite, actually. I want you to be prepared for the veritable shitstorm that is bound to tear through your psyche at the first mention of "the rest of your life" and inevitably find its way through an advisor's or professor's lips. It may seem petty and, frankly, a bit melodramatic that something as vague and in the future as, well, your future, could cause such a mental crisis. But make no mistake, stress can cause turmoil and, at its very worst, can kill.

In a recent piece by the New York Times, Julie Scelfo investigates the growing number of suicides on college campuses across the United States. Among the profiled schools, my own university finds a significant place, due in part to the highly publicized disappearance and eventual tragic discovery of Anna Smith last year. In addition to Smith, the university faced two more tragedies in the form of suicide. But Appalachian State was not alone in its grief.

Ms. Holleran was the third of six Penn students to commit suicide in a 13-month stretch, and the school is far from the only one to experience a so-called suicide cluster. This school year, Tulane lost four students and Appalachian State at least three — the disappearance in September of a freshman, Anna M. Smith, led to an 11-day search before she was found in the North Carolina woods, hanging from a tree. Cornell faced six suicides in the 2009-10 academic year. In 2003-4, five New York University students leapt to their deaths.

To make matters worse, suicide rates among the 15-24 years-old age range are on the rise, "from 9.6 deaths [in 2007] per 100,000 to 11.1, in 2013." In addition, college counselors have seen an increase in psychological issues among students.

But a survey of college counseling centers has found that more than half their clients have severe psychological problems, an increase of 13 percent in just two years. Anxiety and depression, in that order, are now the most common mental health diagnoses among college students, according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State.

Why are we losing our peers to depression and suicide? Obviously, there's no solid and satisfying answer to the age-old question of what causes this sort of melancholy reaction to life. It's wrapped in layers of nature and nurture that no one is really qualified to make a blanket statement about. It's individual to each and every person and to try and explain it is futile. That being said, there are some interesting insights on what, precisely, it feels like to be one of these confusingly suicidal individuals. Namely, the feeling of falling short.

The author of the article posits that depression often befalls people not who have nothing, but those who have had something and lost it. This discrepancy acts as a gauge by which we judge ourselves and our seemingly hopeless attempts at pulling ourselves towards our idealistic goals. In this line of thought, it's easy to see why a college freshmen with their sights set on medical school might fall into a deep depression upon that first C. Things that would ordinarily be met with a slight bout of irritation or disappointment are instead blown into stratospheric proportions, making people question the validity of their lives.

Is there something or someone to blame here? Perhaps, but to point fingers is an exercise in presumption, and forgoes the sacred process of critical thought. Personally, I think the societal expectations thrust upon incoming (and, indeed, returning) college students play a large role in creating this self-imposed ideal for how one should tackle college. The never-ending tide of college do's and don't's fashion a narrative by which many believe they must adhere to, effectively rendering perspective impotent in the wake of expectation.

Which, I suppose, is my main point. Expectation is the death of contentedness. It rips apart any sort of small happiness you may find in every day life and shoves it under the microscope, forcing you to look at your perceived failures. Expectation takes the form of candy-coated, peppy optimism about the college experience to-be. Even the asinine and oft-touted phrase "college experience" reeks of lofty expectations and inevitable disappointment.

But disappointment is good. These thoughts should not be taken as nihilistic omens for a wholly depressing future. On the contrary, they should be of some relief. I want you to know that you can fail, and do so miserably, without the fear that life as you know it will end. Because "life as you know it" is a mythology conjured by self-indulgent media outlets and the facade of your friends' impossibly interesting social media experiences.

Failure cuts through the bullshit. The disappointment accompanying it lays life as it is at your feet, warts and all. These are not enemies to your happiness, but agents of truth, designed to save you from the illusion that life, and in this case college, if going to be a constant parade of great times and endless smiles. College is going to suck at times. It's going to make you want to pack up everything and join the French Foreign Legion, without so much as a look back. You'll stumble upon worries you never thought you'd have and feel the prick of real life steadily shuffling you towards that most terrifying of leaps.

This is the way it is. And that is ok. We are all collectively tearing our hair out and agonizing over the vague future that we once thought might manifest itself some time between freshman year and graduation. But there is no magical moment of clarity, no sudden enlightenment. And to expect that it will occur is the start of a dangerous path towards despair.

I am not looking to scare. I am looking to prepare you for an easier time in college. Whether you're preparing for the first time or returning to another year, I want you to have some perspective on the whole damn comedy and realize that expectations are best trashed in favor of living honestly. And believe me, you will enjoy college. There will be cinematic moments seemingly lifted straight from pop culture. You will laugh, have a good time and lay out on the quad at least once or twice before the long winter. But with all this comes the other, less spritely element. Rather than push it to the side, I want to lay it in front of you so that when it rears its head in your own life, you will greet it with a nod rather than a scream.

Three students took their lives on Appalachian State's campus this past year. Whether they were victims of college's lofty expectations or their own demons, we may never know. What I do know is that nothing in college is worth taking your life over and that for all its stress and overwhelming nature, its still just a small facet of life in general. I'm sure you've heard that one before, though.

The Morality of Trophy Hunting

Today in "fuck this asshole in particular," America has begun the sacred process of vilification of a dentist from Minnesota for allegedly "hunting" and beheading a lion in Zimbabwe as part of a trophy hunt. The dentist, Dr. Walter J. Palmer, reportedly paid $54,000 to hunt and kill the lion, known affectionately as Cecil by the locals.

But trophy hunting happens all the time. It's legal in many African countries (Zimbabwe and Tanzania being the biggest) and attracts millions of dollars from all over the globe, namely America. Why the outrage? Why the calls for Palmer's head? Why are we fucking this asshole in particular? Well, for starters, almost nothing about this hunt was ethical (not to mention legal) by any standards. As the story goes, Palmer and his hired guides wandered into one of Zimbabwe's national parks and found Cecil, ripe for the killing. Knowing that killing the lion on the grounds of the park would be highly illegal, they decided to utilize a loophole and lure the lion out of the park using a dead animal tied to their vehicle. Once Cecil was safely out of safety, Palmer shot him with a bow and arrow, wounding him. They tracked Cecil and eventually shot and killed him, proceeding to behead and skin him and leaving the carcass behind.

Right about now, there are two different possible reactions. Depending on this reaction, you can either find out if you're a sociopathic rectal cavity or a decent human being. You either see this as a tragedy or "just part of life." The latter reactionaries are the same ilk that buy into the idea that trophy hunting is all hunky dory and that selling off animal lives to the highest bidder is some convoluted way of helping struggling animal populations. Remember Kendall Jones from, like, a fucking year ago? The Texas cheerleader, known for posing with dead animals that she ostensibly shot and killed, gained a whole host of negative media attention when her pictures went viral. Her ordeal briefly brought the conversation of conservation (I'm sorry) to the forefront of everyone's mind before it inevitably slipped into obscurity in favor of whatever pissed us off next in July 2014.

But the conversation needs continuing. Conservation efforts are incredibly important, particularly in a time where we, as a species, are encroaching on literally every habitat on the planet and knocking over trees so that we can....marvel at how many trees we knocked over? I'm still fuzzy on the details. At any rate, trophy hunting is a good place to start. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it more complicated than that? I imagine the answer is "fuck, I have to think about this?" Luckily for you, I've done a good bit of the thinking for you.

For starters, why do people claim that trophy hunting is beneficial in the first place? The most commonly touted reasons are that it A) allows for more regulation of land that would otherwise see the aforementioned human encroachment, and B) garners millions of dollars in revenue for places that are in dire need of it. On face value, these both seem to be fairly rational justifications for sport hunting. No one can deny that one of the biggest ways to help conservation is to make sure it has enough money to fight back against....whatever the opposite of conservation is. Hunting? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.

But how much of that money actually goes into local communities and conservation efforts? A paltry amount, according to some. In fact, according to a study conducted at the University of Oxford, only an estimated 3-5% of revenue from trophy hunting in Tanzania is actually given back to the community. The opposition argues that eco-tourism is a far more profitable method of utilizing Africa's great animals for monetary gain. And these aren't just PETA-addled eco-terrorists that think this. Many African countries, including Kenya and Botswana have implemented countrywide bans on trophy hunting of big game.

The assertion that trophy hunting is beneficial to the survival and thriving of its victim populations is specious at best, relying on self-reported statistics and mythological narratives cooked up by people who want to keep firing rounds into animals that are really just trying to avoid being seen by all these fucking people. Admittedly, in an article in the University of Washington's Conservation magazine, the authors argue that outrage over trophy hunting, while sordid, is simply a distraction from the real problem: illegal poaching. The authors admit, albeit begrudgingly, that trophy hunters are at least more in line with conservation efforts than their criminal counterparts.

But this sort of backwards logic is similar to justifying paying a $5 fee to punch old ladies in the face because, hey, at least you're paying for their dental. I understand that not every trophy hunter is gleefully kicking down the proverbial door, guns a-blazing, but at the same time, I have yet to see any strong evidence of real benefit stemming from the practice of hunting for sport. There are better ways of attracting tourists, better ways of drumming up profit and much better ways of conserving species.

Dr. Palmer is an asshole, without question. He purposefully led a lion (being tracked with a GPS collar that he and his guides attempted to destroy, no less) from its protected habitat so that he could shoot it for the sole purpose of telling his asshole friends that he did. This may not be characteristic of the trophy hunting population as a whole, but I would hazard a guess that it is not a rare personality trait among them. The über-rich shelling out hundreds of thousands each to murder for sport rubs me very much in the wrong way. Its purported benefits aside, there is a deeply moral issue here that cannot be ignored or misdirected. It's indicative of a society that truly believes itself superior to animal-kind, claiming divine dominion over living beings not endowed with the gift of speech and opposable thumbs.

There's still more room for debate here, and I urge you to research on your own. Maybe there are untold benefits and maybe I'm being reactive. But from where I stand, the whole thing reeks of moral depravity.

Why Can't We Talk About Racism?

It only takes one well-armed racist to make a tragedy. In this case, that well-armed racist murdered nine black men and women (mostly the latter) in cold blood. The killer was white and had quite the history of racially charged statements. When he was getting ready to gun down his victims, he made the statement, "you rape our women and you're taking over our country." He has an "us vs. them" mentality that is plain for all to see. His car had Confederate plates and, according to his roommate, he favored segregation. 

The killer was undoubtedly racist and had an agenda that included the brutal murder of black men and women. This is beyond clear. Why is it, then, that we are so bad at acknowledging this? Why has the governor of South Carolina posted a statement in which she muses on the fact that "we do know that we'll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another"? Why are Fox News and Senator Lindsey Graham trying so hard to redirect this crime towards that of faith rather than skin color? 

Why can't we talk about racism? Because we don't want to. I suppose this seems like an overly simplistic and vague answer to a question that demands a much broader explanation, but it's the answer that many people (white people, in particular) need to hear. It's the answer that reveals the protestations for what they are: childish stubbornness. We don't want to talk about racism because we've created the myth that it doesn't exist. We've built up this myth so much that we actually believe it. We've so wholeheartedly embraced this myth to the point where we have started whitewashing history. It doesn't take a historian to note that. Just look at South Carolina, the state where this most recent massacre took place. 

Flying the colors of a former (and failed) seceding nation that fought on the side of racism is an excellent example of this collective mindset of willful ignorance. Ta-Nehisi Coates has already broached this subject much more eloquently than I ever could here. But his call for the take down of this symbol of systemic racism has unfortunately, for now, fallen on deaf ears. 

We like to think that racism is dead, killed by the Civil War Amendments and buried by 1960s legislation. We like to think we've kicked a nasty habit of our forefathers and that we live in a new progressive world of forward thought and color blindness. But it precisely this post-racial mythical world that we have fashioned for ourselves that perpetuates a racist mindset and prevents us from pinpointing racism when we see it. It's uncomfortable and incriminates ourselves as assets to the crime. 

I can't do anything about the collective consciousness of anachronistic white folk and a media that likes to avoid discomfort at all costs, but I can throw in my support as an ally and step forward to say this: I am sorry. I am sorry that we are so bad at talking about racism and I am sorry that I have contributed in any way to its perpetuation. 

I am sorry that one guy with racist ideas and a gun killed nine of your sisters and brothers. Their names are here: 

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton 

Rev. Clementa Pinckney 

Cynthia Hurd 

Tywanza Sanders

Myra Thompson 

Ethel Lee Lance 

Daniel L. Simmons 

Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor

Susie Jackson 

(Buzzfeed has actually written up a beautiful memorial for them here.)

I am sorry this tragedy happened, especially because I know it could have been avoided. The first step to avoiding any more massacres is admitting to ourselves that racism is alive and that it is extinguishing black lives. From there, we can work towards further progress. Please, please, please spread the word. Inform your friends and family. Have the uncomfortable chat. Let's talk about racism until it truly is dead and buried. 

On Liberal Academia

No doubt, you've come across the Vox article written by a "liberal professor" by now. The professor, writing under the pseudonym Edward Schlosser, offers up an incredibly unpopular opinion, claiming that his liberal students scare him and that their passion for social justice has made them aggressive towards anything contrary to the preferred status quo.

In response, a Vox writer and former adjunct professor posits that Mr. Schlosser's opinion is skewed by personal experience with very little in the way of evidence to back it up. She dedicates her article to pointing out how ridiculously difficult the job market is for those in academia, citing that a majority of adjunct professors live below the poverty line. Her point is that professors shouldn't be afraid of their students but that they should take issue with a "university system that treats students as customers and faculty as the interchangeable means of production."

Finally, again on Vox, Koritha Mitchell wrote an article in response to the whole ordeal. She wrote of her experience as a black woman teaching in a white male dominated field. More so than this, however, she offered up a concept that had yet to have been discussed:

"It is worth asking, Who can most afford to teach in ways that are least likely to inspire controversy? Those who are not immediately hurt by dominant ideas. And what's the most dominant idea of them all? That the white, male, heterosexual perspective is neutral, but all other perspectives are biased and must be treated with skepticism."

She believes the most important way to discuss controversial issues is to discuss the power dynamic present in each situation. This is, perhaps, the most important point made throughout this whole discussion and it bears rumination.

The first writer, ostensibly a white man, is disturbed by his colleagues being admonished for even broaching the discussion of offensive or unpopular ideas. He portrays his students as sensitivity police, always on the lookout for toes breaching the line. Personally, I don't believe he is entirely off base here. Stepping outside the world of academia for a moment, comedian Jerry Seinfeld recently made a few remarks about political correctness and how he believes that it is "killing comedy." In particular, he claims that he won't perform at colleges for this very reason, a move made by fellow comedian Chris Rock last year. Both comedians bemoan the easily offended natures of young college students with Seinfeld making the claim that younger people these days are throwing words like "sexist" and "racist" around without really knowing what it means.

They both have sort of a point. It's the same point that Mr. Schlosser makes in his article and, like Ms. Mitchell's, is worthy of some thought. The point that overzealous liberals are making it hard to discuss issues is sound. There are certainly instances in which unpopular ideas are drowned out entirely in favor of emotion. The culture around shutting down opinions because they are uncomfortable is an existing one. But I am hesitant to acquiesce to the idea that is a dominant one. This is where power dynamics come in.

Koritha Mitchell posited that white heterosexual men suffer from the misconception that their skin color and position in life have no effect on their actions, rendering them neutral. In this idea she further makes the point that white men make a habit of offering their ideas without paying mind to their privilege while turning around and reprimanding minority opinions as those borne from emotion rather than fact.

This presents an interesting and complicated (as you've probably already seen) issue. On the one hand, you have a particular sect of the college population that does take social justice to the limit and that does often make it difficult to have an actual discussion. But on the other hand, you have people in positions of power that have always been in power that are now questioning their "safety" from these passionately socially conscious students. Unlike network news, I won't tell you that there's a right or wrong answer. This is not an issue or black and white (well...you know what I mean) but an issue of grey, where all of the above people dwell yet cannot seem to find one another. All of them, in one way or another, are making a worthy point. It's up to you to decide which points are founded and which are not.

In short, I offer this: never discredit someone's opinion because of their background, but always take that background into account. Use it as a gauge, not a gag. Similarly, waving off young people as a group of overly sensitive whiners is a very limited and narrow view of the world that could benefit from reading opinions by those in minority positions. Read books and articles written by black women and gay men and transgender people. Do your best to empathize with those that live entirely different lives from you.

The world is full of nuance and is way too confusing. Take heart in the fact that this is a universal problem.