Day: April 6, 2012

The Government Has Been in Charge

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

Sorry, people, just one more table from the same source as the previous one:

The facile creature has not even been able to notice that a single government has NOT been in charge of anything for 42, 47 or 77 years. We’ve had different governments with very disparate agendas succeeding each other at regular intervals this entire time. It seems like this guy has been asleep since the first day of first grade.

Also, please notice how the poor are “a growing segment of the population that continually seeks more.” I’ve had students whose command of the English language was miserable but it’s rare that one gets to see anything of this caliber. What is it that the poor, whose numbers grow, “continually seek”? More poverty? Because according to this weird guy’s own statement, that’s the only things those “continually seeking” poor are getting.

As we say in my culture, and these are the people who want to offer me lessons on how to pick my nose!

How to Be a Self-Defeating Conservative

~ Clarissa ~ 57 Comments

As I’m struggling not to succumb to the yearly “end-of-academic-year” bout of sickness, I want to share the following hilarious table with you.

And here is my own list of instructions on how to defeat one’s own political cause as a Conservative:

  • combine jingoism with complete disregard for the rules of the English language by using expressions like “American processes,” “individual dreams as a path to leading,” and “create less and simpler taxes.”
  • come up with the most useless statement ever like “to compete for happiness” and use it proudly, in spite of its utter meaninglessness. You have to be a very disturbed and pathetic human being to believe that you can win happiness at some competition. I don’t want to believe that this miserable little thing uses the word “happiness” to refer to money. That would be too bizarre even for the creator of this table.
  • defy logic by suggesting that honoring something and treating it as a living document are contradictory, instead of complimentary, attitudes. Apparently, the weird author of this silly table thinks that you could only respect things and people who are already dead. Hence, his unhealthy desire to wage as many wars. Creating a mountain of dead bodies seems to be the only way for him to experience any respect for others.
  • refuse to see that if just one person is added to “the lower income 50%”, it is only fair that this majority should decide what happens in the country.
  • conveniently forget that, in the most recent 30 years, the Presidents who created huge budget deficits were on the right. And the only President who created a surplus was on the Left. Which surplus was then frittered away by a debt-loving President on the right.

The sad thing is that the pathetic fool who came up with this unintelligent table is getting quoted massively. Of course, people who quote it can neither conjugate nor see the difference between a chart and a table: “The chart below highlight some key differences in right and left-wing philosophies.” I haven’t read any posts by the gentleman who created this nearly meaningless sentence but something tells me he has a few posts here and there on the bad, mean college professors who pervert the innocent American kids and make him laugh at the grievously ignorant folks like himself.

Grievance Board

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

Somebody placed a “Grievance Board” in the student center.

“What bothers you?” appears in the upper part of the board. The board filled up very fast. One of students decided to answer the question with “My penis is too big.” This provoked the following impassioned response from another student that I had to record for posterity:

I especially like the part about coming to college to become a worker bee and nothing else.

Who Causes Corruption in Ukraine?

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

I was reading a very good and powerful post about the tragedy of a Ukrainian woman who was brutally raped and then set on fire by the rapists. I can’t write about this situation myself because it traumatizes me too much, so make sure you read the post here.

One thing, however, that I need to address is the following statement:

It is understandable that average Ukrainians have felt almost helpless in changing the prevalence of corruption in their own country but this incident proves that a horrific situation has the power to embolden the media and everyday citizens to demand change.

This sounds as if the people of Ukraine had a group of aliens from another galaxy spreading this corruption in the country. I also find it hard to  comprehend who this change-granting authority is supposed to be from which Ukrainians will demand lesser corruption.

The people of Ukraine (and Russia) are very corrupt. As a Ukrainian, I find this very shameful. But that’s the truth. On every single occasion when I mentioned to people from my country that one could live one’s life without giving or soliciting bribes, the reaction was that of outrage and fury. Of course, people get annoyed when corruption works to their detriment. This does not, however, prevent them from using it for their own benefit as often as they can.

Until the idea that people who pay taxes honestly, don’t cheat on exams, don’t bribe officials, don’t solicit bribes, don’t lie and cheat are not idiots but simply good, honest citizens becomes widely accepted among my fellow Ukrainians, corruption in Ukraine will remain as wide-spread as ever. Ukrainians complain about corruption a lot but it never occurs to them that eradicating corruption should start with one’s own efforts to live one’s life honestly.