Rant #2,665: A Day of Remembrance

Get the barbecues out, get the swimsuits on—
 
It’s Memorial Day Weekend!
 
Yes, I do it too.
 
I kind of forget what Memorial Day is really all about, and it really isn’t about the unofficial beginning of summer … but in a strange way, it is all about that.
 
We have lost thousands upon thousands of young men and women who have served our country in the armed forces and who have fought, and paid the ultimate sacrifice, in wars and other conflicts that have sought to preserve our country and what our country stands for.
 
And what our country stands for is freedom, and if they have fought—and died—to preserve that freedom, when we do fun things on Memorial Day, in a strange way, we are saluting them for what they have done and the sacrifices they have made.
 
I guess I am trying to justify the fact that probably three-quarters of our population has no idea what Memorial Day really means and really signifies, but it is what it is.
 
Let's go back to Rant No. 970, dated May 24, 2013, and see exactly what I am talking about, in slightly edited form.
 
"Coming up on Monday is Memorial Day, the day we honor those who have served, and gave their lives, for our country in the numerous wars we have fought leading up to our country's creation in 1776 and beyond.
 
Once known as Decoration Day, the holiday falls every year on the last Monday in May.
 
In recent years--or for as long as I can remember--Memorial Day has taken on a different meaning.
 
Not to knock our service men and women--who continue to protect our country from unimaginable peril each and every day--but the holiday means so many other things now.
 
First of all, many of us have off from work on that day.
 
Most people get so few holidays off during the year that they look forward to Memorial Day like a bee looks forward to the next flower it can pollinate.
 
Memorial Day also signals the beginning of the summer season.
 
Notice I say "the summer season," because summer actually doesn't come for several weeks after, in late June. But it signals warmth, hot nights and days, and so the holiday is thought of as sort of a gateway to summer and all the fun that that season brings.
 
And finally, Memorial Day generally signifies the day when many of us, myself included, have our very first barbecue of the year.
 
Honestly, I can taste those hot dogs right now! I love to barbecue, so if the weather holds up, it will certainly be my family's maiden barbecue of the year.
 
Many parades are held during this holiday, and most of them are seemingly precursors to barbecues, so even if we honor our war dead--and again, this is not a knock against any of our service people--we gradually move toward family oriented events during the holiday.
 
This makes Memorial Day one of the most family oriented holidays on the calendar, and a day we can all look forward to.”
 
So although we are supposed to be honoring our war dead on this holiday, what we are really honoring is our lives, and what we are able to do, as a result of their ultimate sacrifices.
 
In my neck of the woods, there probably won’t be too many barbecues, because the weather is supposed to be rainy and not too nice.
 
But at least we get the freedom to choose what we want to do on that special day.
 
So when you really look at it, Memorial Day is a special day, a day of freedom that is permitted because our service men and women have always gone the extra mile to make it so.
 
Let’s salute them on this day, and never forget the sacrifices they have made to enable us to live the lives that we do in the greatest country in the world.
 
I, too, will take Monday off, so I will speak to you again on Tuesday.
 
Have a great weekend and a great holiday.

Rant #2,664: Be True To Your School

I am all for cleavage.
 
Look, I am a red-blooded American male, and adoring the female form, I just love cleavage.
 
But there is a time and a place for everything, and a high school yearbook is not the place to be showing much of anything, except for a big smile of relief that you are finally getting out of this place and moving on to college or the work field.
 
Evidently, there is a big stir somewhere in Florida, where some parents are taking their daughters’ high school over the coals because the school photo-shopped 80 of the girls’ yearbook pictures because of its code, which does not allow for too much skin to be shown in these yearbooks.
 
Some of the girls being photoshopped are freshmen, so they might be as young as 14 years of age, up to seniors, who are 18 years of age.
 
The girls are upset, because they feel that the photoshopping has taken away their rights as young women to wear what they want when they want to, even if they are in a school setting.
 
And many parents have backed them, stating that the censorship of the young ladies’ cleavage is body shaming at its worst, and sexist too, because no young men were photoshopped for showing too much of their tops.
 
What these young women do not understand, and what their parents should understand but somehow it has gone over the tops of their heads, is that men and women are built differently, and thus, there has to be two sets of rules for women and men when it comes to what you can show and what you can’t—even if the measures that they are using are probably somewhat antiquated and need some updating.
 
Here is what I wrote on Facebook about this situation:
 
“Nothing wrong with cleavage, but not in a school yearbook.
The pictures I saw aren't that bad, but it proves once again that there is an anatomical difference between men and women, and yes, if modesty is a school rule for yearbooks, then the rule, even if it may be outdated, has to be followed.
The thing that gets me is that the parents cannot understand this. The way you dress in school helps you when you get out of school, and haven't we all seen ladies dressed in some odd choices for work outfits when we have been in the workplace?
Yes, both boys and girls are shown in bathing suits in the same yearbook, but those photos are related to the swim team, and I don't see anybody in anything immodest in those photos.
Again, what I saw wasn't that bad, but rules are rules, and you learn from the rules.
The problem is clearly that there are two sets of rules, one for boys and one for girls ... and sorry, there should be two sets of rules based on the anatomical differences between males and females.”
 
In today’s society, where equality and inclusion are by-words and often mean something very different than what they were intended to mean, it seems that few people want to be told what to do anymore, even if it is for their own good.
 
And that includes 15 year old girls who show a little skin … nothing terrible, but maybe a little too much in a yearbook from a high school in what is probably a very conservative town.
 
And this should actually be a teaching moment.
 
You know, there is a way to dress for success, and you learn that as you grow up and go from a little kid to a teenager to a young adult.
 
And one of the places you learn this is in school.
 
Dressing modestly and not drawing attention to yourself is a virtue, one that you can use later in life when you go off into the real world.
 
And yes, there is a double standard between males and females, and there should be one. There are anatomical differences between males and females, and perhaps it is wrong, but the female breast is what it is, a nutrition source for nurturing children, but it is also thought of as a sex object, and before you dump on men for making this so, ladies, you know that you buy into that too, and often dress the part when it is called for.
 
Sorry, even though these young ladies weren’t hanging out every which way, there is a way to dress and not to dress.
 
I think I might have told this story to you previously, but it bears worth repeating.
 
We did not have direct deposit at my work, so every other week, we all had to run to the bank during lunch time to cash our checks.
 
I went to this particular bank at the time, and there was a woman teller there who I just happened to get this one particular day.
 
The woman was dressed in such an outfit that it is really surprising that the bank didn’t have her cover up.
 
She was a tall girl, and she was big—and I mean huge—in her chest area.
 
Remember yesterday when we spoke about Pam Grier, who was no slouch herself in that department?
 
Well this young lady made Grier, in comparison, look like Olive Oyl.
 
Anyway, I went up to the window, and she had on some type of outfit where her massive cleavage was jutting out almost right in my face, even though I was behind a teller window several feet in front of her.
 
Being tall, her cleavage was pretty much eye level with me, and being the guy that I am, honestly, well, you just couldn’t miss it, and it went beyond the cleavage, because I would estimate that probably at least 75 percent of her unclothed breasts were in clear view of everyone.
 
I cashed my check, and yes, I did think to myself, “Sure, I got a great view, but this girl … honestly, that is not the right way to dress when you are at work, in particular when you are dealing with the public."
 
Again, I am not talking about a “wardrobe malfunction,” I am talking about a “mental dysfunction.”
 
How could this girl not realize that she was dressed inappropriately … or did she care … or was she receiving the desired responses that she wanted from customers?
 
We have all been in situations where co-workers dressed inappropriately, and because of women’s fashions and again, because of anatomy, women should know what they are wearing to work, or to school, but sometimes, they don’t get it.
 
The P.S. to the story is that this teller was, a few weeks later, either fired or reprimanded or removed not because of her dress, but because her cash draw did not balance out right at the end of the day.
 
I know this because the next time I went to the bank, two weeks later, she was there, she was dressed in something more in tune with the setting … and she accused me of being the culprit of her problem, as she claimed that she gave me too much money back, which, by the way, was a lie.
 
She was gone the next time I went in there and I never saw her again.
 
Do I remember this incident because she wrongly accused me of an impropriety or because of her enormous cleavage?
 
Honestly, it is probably a mix of the two, err … I think you know what I mean.
 
So I would tell the girls at that high school in Florida to be slightly more careful in their clothing choices, because there are ways to dress and ways not to dress—
 
And no matter what we are being force fed by people who have no clue what they are talking about, there are differences between males and females.
 
And the differences are often quite attractive … but in the proper time and place.
 
And sorry ladies, life at times is not fair, but get with the program … even if you feel that you are right when you pocket the money that you got back in a refund when you protested by returning your yearbook to the school.
 
When you get older, maybe you will see the wisdom in what the school did, and maybe you should retake biology to find out that there are, in fact, differences between men and women ,,,

And we are all better for those differences.

Rant #2,663: Say It Loud--I'm Black and I'm Proud

Happy May 26!
 
I don’t know what I am so happy about; it’s just another day for me.
 
But somebody celebrates a birthday today that is at least worst mentioning, and it is the lady with the picture at the top of this Rant, and just looking at it makes me and a million other guys happy.
 
Can you believe that Pam Grier is 72 years of age today?
 
For kids that grew up in the 1970s—and I mean primarily boys who became teenagers during that decade—Pam Grier was IT.

 
I don’t care if you were black, yellow, white, brown, orange, purple or any other color in the spectrum, Pam Grier was IT, certainly one of the great sex symbols of her generation.
 
She has since gone on to become quite an accomplished actress, and is probably one of the busiest “older” actresses in Hollywood today, but everybody has to start someplace, and Grier had her first screen role in—
 
A Russ Meyer movie, which based on her exquisite, voluptuous figure back then, shouldn’t surprise anyone.

 
Back in 1970s, she had an uncredited role as a partygoer in Meyer’s “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” and that minor role propelled her to starring roles in a whole slew of blaxploitation films in the early to mid 1970s that made her a favorite of guys like me, just sowing our oats, so to speak, as young teenagers who were enraptured not just by her beauty, but by her incredible figure.
 
Just reading off a couple of movies that she was prominently featured in at the time really reads like a “Who’s Who” of blaxploitation films of the period, movies that featured every stereotype imaginable to get their points across, but these were also among the first widely distributed and seen films starring black actors in generally leading roles.

 
Look at the list of blaxploitation films that she was in from 1972 to 1976 or so:
 
• Hit Man
 
• Black Mama, White Mama
 
• Coffy
 
• Scream, Blacula, Scream
 
• Foxy Brown
 
• Sheba Baby
 
• Bucktown
 
• Friday Foster

 
And that doesn’t even include the straight-out exploitation films that she was in, including “The Big Doll House,” “Women in Cages,” and “Drum.”
 
And in just about every one of these, her incredible body was shown off to its fullest possible extent.

 
And even though these were true exploitation movies, she generally played strong women in each one of these films, using both her fists, her legs, and any available weapon to her advantage.
 
She rapidly became one of the top sex symbols of the era, with boys like me, of every stripe, waiting for her next movie to come out to see how much skin she would bare--and how many people she would splatter.
 
But as those types of films pretty much played themselves out of existence as drive-ins also went down the tubes, Grier might have been in some zero-star films, but she was learning her craft in those movies, and she went on to much better fare, and really, has never looked back.

 
In 1997, she was the star of Quentin Tarantilno’s “Jackie Brown,” and this one-time exploitation star actually was in a film that paid homage to her previous acting persona.

 
During the last 25 years, she has appeared in numerous TV and movie roles, including in Showtime’s “The L Word,” an ahead of its time show about lesbians that featured both gay and straight actresses in the lead roles.
 
And if you have wondered about it, Grier never married, although she has been rumored to have had affairs with everyone form basketball’s Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to comedian Richard Pryor, from whom she has acknowledged that she got a cocaine-related disease from during her sexual relationship with the known drug user (that is the politest way I can describe it; look it up for more details, but what she got from him was pretty ugly).
 
She is, herself, a cancer survivor, and looking back at her career, I guess you can call her a survivor in general.
 
Even all these years later, I can distinctly remember going to a drive-in around here to see a triple feature of her films “The Big Doll House,” “Women In Cages,” and the “Big Bird Cage,” and when HBO just started, they used to show just about all her movies during their late night fare, so I probably saw all of her movies, one way or the other, through 1976 or so.

 
So happy birthday to Pam Grier, a movie icon who really lifted her game to another level as the 1970s went into the 1980s and into the 1990s, all the way to today.
 
She is a piece of just about all male Baby Boomers’ lives, in particular us kids who were becoming teenagers in the early 1970s.
 
And we have all aged with her, but we still marvel at those early movies …
 
Absolutely incredible! 

Rant #2,662: Black and White

Welcome to May 25, the 145th day of the year.
 
Only 220 days more until we end 2021, which I think will go down as one of the strangest and most interesting years on record, right after 2020, of course.
 
Get ready, because we are going to be inundated with news about George Floyd today, because this criminal … err … this patriot of our American flag was murdered today by a rogue cop, setting off calls for social justice that reverberated around the world.
 
I have no doubt that the cop that did this did, in fact, do what he was convicted of, but I don’t believe that it was a white on black thing as so many people around the world want it to be, and more importantly, have decreed that it is.
 
I think that it was a terrible tragedy, where a thug got pinned by a cop that overused his power and went way too far in his handling of this crook.
 
Notice, I did not say anything about either of their races.
 
The cop got what he deserved, the other policemen that were present will get theirs, but this in no way was a situation that had anything to do about race, no matter how much anyone wants it to be about race.
 
This cop was wrong in his handling of Floyd, but it wasn’t a racial incident.
 
Floyd was well known as a drug abuser and a petty criminal in that neck of the woods, and he is being made into a saint by so many people who have been blinded by this phony "racial injustice" thing.
 
The city paid out millions to the family to compensate for the cop’s heinous actions, Floyd’s family will be meeting with the president today, and you just know that there will be more protests today, probably with a lot of violence and anti-police and anti-white vitriol behind these supposed “peaceful” protests.
 
Look, it was a terrible incident, and should have never happened.
 
But to make the rogue cop into the example of how all policemen are is as idiotic as stating that Floyd is the example of how all black people are.
 
It is ridiculous, but that is the narrative today, and nobody dares say anything against it.
 
But here I am, alone in the jungle, saying things against it, because anybody with two eyes in their head can see the Pandora’s Box this case has opened, and opened very wide without a chance of it ever closing again.
 
Whites are now fair game for racist taunts thrown against them, and if you need any examples of that to see with those two eyes in your head, simply look at the New York City mayor’s race, and see how that is unfolding.
 
You have at least a half-dozen candidates with campaign commercials that are so blatantly anti-white that it is hard to believe that they are actually allowed to run these ads on TV without anyone saying anything.
 
This includes several ads that are so blatantly anti-white—including one that states that the person running for mayor was beaten as a child by cops, and became a cop himself in an earlier career move to fight "racial injustice" in a series of ads that feature absolutely no white people in them at all—that you really have to wonder about not only that person’s mindset, but of the mindset of a city that would allow this person to serve in public office.
 
He was the same legislator who last year, when everything was closed up because of the pandemic, told mayor deBlasio that if he didn’t open up the public pools and parks, “I can’t guarantee that I can control my people to be law abiding with nothing to do.”
 
Then we have another candidate—a white, Jewish guy by the way—who has already used what amounts to the race card to try to garner votes form New York City's sizeable Hispanic population. His commercial says his stepfather was Hispanic, a Puerto Rican—and not only is he sympathetic to his "plight," but at the end of the commercial, he and his wife walk among his stepfather’s family, showing that he is almost like an “honorary Hispanic” himself.
 
He has other commercials which are even more repugnant, where he shows a seven-year-old with a Beatle haircut talking about “marriage equality.”
 
Goodness, if you have not seen these ads, you would not be rolling your eyes as you probably are right now, but yes, they exist and yes, they are so blatantly racist that I cannot believe they even exist.

(And that isn't even including the anti-white ideals brought out by the pandemic itself, where inequities along racial grounds have been unfairly dumped on whites, and we have a commercial running on New York television where a group of black doctors plead for blacks to get inoculated, even though they are pawns of "social injustice" and "racism," without looking at the real issue that they, as a group, simply do not want the shot as much as other racial groups do.and it has nothing to do with "racial injustice.")

So that is what the aftermath of George Floyd has wrought.
 
It is all wrong, but we have people in power, and we have people in the media, who believe that this is the way to go, this is the way for our country to act, to actually believe that all the ills we have in this country has been caused by whites, and mainly by white men.
 
We don’t look at the realities, we only want to fester that message.
 
And we even have white people believing this, diving head on into the imaginary “white guilt” that all caucasians are supposed to have.

 
Sorry, I don’t buy into it … never have, never will.
 
And all of this has happened during a supposed pandemic, when we should all be on the same page against one common enemy—
 
But we aren’t. 

And that is the saddest thing to come out of the George Floyd incident for me.