Wednesday 26 August 2009

It's A Soapbox Moment

Yesterday morning Mifford woke me at 3.30am. That would be bad enough, except she woke me up by throwing up. In the bed.
Ah, you have to love having pets.
I thought that surely had to be a bad omen, but actually it wasn't a wholly bad day at all.

Later on when I logged into twitter the number one Trending Topic was "fatpeoplearesexier".

I was immediately suspicious and wondered what sort of piss-take was going on, but was really pleased to see that most of the tweets were positive. People agreeing or relishing something that wasn't negative being said about overweight people.
Obviously there were exceptions. What was refreshing was that they were in the minority.
They were still of the mindset that it's ok to be ignorant and rude.
There's an old saying that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.
Maybe you shouldn't jump at any opportunity that presents itself to be offensive.
This is lovely "gent" is one such example.
Apparently you have to BE fat to find anyone who IS fat attractive.
I guess those men who are thin and going out with fat women are unable to think for themselves.
But wait, he goes on to say, you can only be sexy IF you're not fat any more. He's a great guy.

Then Miss Cherry Pie steps into the mix. She's ever so funny. See what she did here?
She made a whale joke.
That's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
It's never been done before.

Oh the originality.
Sigh.

I actually feel a little sorry for them. If you don't have some body - that the media/fashion world has defined as perfect, then you cannot be attractive.
One must be thin to be pretty.
What utter bullshit.
And yet, people like the example below, again, have been brainwashed into believing it to be true.
It's sad to me.

This isn't what defines you.
Your weight doesn't define who you are as a person.
To my mind, your actions define you.
What kind of person thinks it's nice to mock others? For any reason, be it weight, colour, religion, disability, musical preference, whatever major or minor thing.
What kind of person finds outright insults amusing? I just don't get it.
How anyone functions with a mind so small is beyond me.

The vaguely amusing point is that the whole hashtag trending topic thing, started out because of this guy, Shane Dawson, and his video:

The whole point was that he doesn't understand why people are mean and narrow minded. As if to prove the exact thing this guy is talking about people have to jump on, what they assume to be, an offensive bandwagon but in the process make themselves look foolish.

While I'm on the soapbox...

I drove home from town last night, the traffic was nose to tail as we moved through traffic lights and I spotted in my wing mirror a large van driving quickly up to the merging point. All other cars were in the inside lane as there was clearly no room to overtake anyone. This van got his nose just in front of my car, indicated and pushed his way in, forcing me to literally stand on my brakes to avoid a collision. I may have gesticulated in anger, just a little.
A moment or two later the road bears to the left, it's a pretty serious bend, you can't see beyond it.
The van? It has decided the appropriate road placement is in the other carriageway, directly facing any possible oncoming traffic. Not just nosing over the line, hell no, his entire vehicle in the oncoming lane. I like to talk to myself and yelled "that's a bend you idiot!" Once clear of the bend he overtakes, I suspect there was just enough room, I also suspect that the car in that lane had to brake rather to allow the van time to make its pass.
I travelled along, at the speed limit, watching this van accelerate away from me, clearly breaking the speed limits.
I felt that satisfaction that every road user feels when I realised he was stuck behind some slower moving traffic with no chance of overtaking.
However, a few minutes later there is a very brief short stretch of road, before a sharp right hand bend. He chose this spot to overtake, rather brilliantly this is also where a large, bright red sign has been erected, warning about the dangers of this road.
My route from home to town is known as a red route, it denotes a dangerous road, this year it would probably average out to nearly a death a week on that road.
This guy is driving dangerously, endangering the rest of us.
You know the worst part?
Guess what it said on the back of the van?

POLICE. COLLISION INVESTIGATION.

I'm composing a letter of complaint to the Chief Constable later today.
That's actually not my nature, but seriously, if we can't get away with driving like that, why in the hell should they?
Especially when there are no sirens and no flashing lights.
Were it an emergency we'd all have let him pass, I just object to him being the one in danger of causing the emergency.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said. On all counts. :-)

Sleepydumpling said...

I totally didn't buy into that Twitter thing last night. It was great to see so much positive stuff but I knew there would be someone hatin' on the fatties out there, so I kept well out of it!

Wyld Jane.. said...

yes cos everyone wants to look like Victoria beckham don't they !!!? not !!! you go girl on the letter i am agreement with you , one rule for all on the roads !!

Flibbertigibbet said...

Anon: Thank you!

Sleepydumpling: I can never get my head round your last night being my this morning! lol

Arlenkern74: It scares me how very many people want to look like someone else! What's wrong with looking like yourself!