An Open Letter to Africa

Posted on April 7th, 2008 by Joe

Dear Africa,

Genocide in Darfur and Rwanda? AIDS crisis? For too long, I’ve sat idle while thousands of travesties took place in Africa.I’ve never before declared that an entire continent can blow me, but now is the time to take action.

Here goes: Africa, blow me.

Let’s stop fucking around. You’re poor and full of diseases. Why is your default behavior to have more children? I can only imagine the thought process goes something like this:
“Gee, my life is really crappy. I’m hungry, I have essentially no home, and I’m struggling with these diseases because my crappy society lacks modern medicine. I mean, sure it’s fine to dance around with drums to drive spirits away, but deep down, I know that doesn’t really help anyone get well. I’ve got the solution to all of my problems: I need to create more people. What an idea! Now someone else will be born into crippling poverty and disease. I’m sure that someone will be a productive member of society, only acting in an honest and forthcoming manner.”

“Africa is home to less than
10% of the world’s population
but has more than 66% of all
HIV/AIDS cases worldwide. In
2006, more than 2 million
Africans died from AIDS.”
Sounds like you’re doing something wrong.  Maybe you should work on improving your situation.

The bleeding hearts in the United States would love for you to donate money to feed these people. Why should I pay for someone else’s poor decisions? Here’s my angle: I give you a box of aid (in the form of medicine or food) and you get sterilized. Now you can have all the sex you want, without crapping out more kids for some asshole activist on campus to tell me are “my responsibility.” Then, I teach you how to get your own food, or I let you trade valuable resources (Africa has valuable resources?) for more food.

Being stupid, and having a shitty community is easy to fix.  Do what someone else has done.  Listen to people who are smarter than you.  All you have to do is try.  Listen to people who are smarter than you.

What has Africa done for you lately? Occupied useful space in your newspaper? Offended you by showing images of poor, starving people on television? At what point do we let Africa decide Africa’s future. Listen up idiots: quit giving a shit about Africa. Let Africa decide if it’s going to remain diseased, poor, and hungry.

“But they can’t do anything about it, blah blah blah.” Bullshit. Major change (for the better) can’t take place without a large quantity of indigenous people wanting what’s best for everyone. Has no civil war successfully taken place on this planet? Is it so great to live in crappy poverty, keeping it that way for your children? Or maybe there’s something better worth fighting for. Maybe your (as a whole) situation could be better in the future?

Go help yourself Africa, because I don’t give a shit about you. Again, blow me.

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Being Offended - A Reasonable look

Posted on March 25th, 2008 by Joe

Idea:

That the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign should issue punitive sanctions for students who engage in expression that degrades, intimidates, or incites violence on the basis of race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion or disability.

This is the topic of a debate I’m considering entering.  I felt that I should express my thoughts here before I take to the stage and humiliate some feeble-minded political science majors.

I contend that there is no agreeable definition of what is “offensive” and therefore one cannot make rules regarding levels of “offensiveness.”

There is no measure of how offensive something is.  You cannot measure offensiveness in ohms, volts, radians, miles, or ounces.  The idea of something being offensive is individual to each person.  What you may find offensive, I may not find offensive.  Furthermore, the thing that offends one person may be seen as ridiculous to another person.

Does one party’s view on the ridiculousness of  an offensive topic make that topic any less offensive to whom is offended?   Of course not.  Separate the ideas in your mind.  The idea that something is offensive is separate from the idea that you may think that the offended party is acting foolish.  Great, now that we have those ideas separated, we can Move back to the matter at hand.

Punitive sanctions for students who  engage in expression of [offensive] behavior.  Who is to determine what is offensive enough to warrant such a sanction?  The University of Illinois?  Will it be on omnipotent faculty member making a binary divide of offensive and not-offensive-enough behavior, or will it be a committee?  Any divide between offensive and not-offensive-enough behavior would separate people of different philosophies.

Those whose philosophy which could be described as “more offend-able” would be offended that the University is not agreeing with their philosophy.  The divide offends people, and subsequently commits the infraction that it intends to avoid.  Does that mean it’s permissible to offend people as long as it’s not based on race, sex, religion, ethnicity, blah blah blah?

My counterargument is simple.  There is no maximum offendedness level.   There will always be some thing that offends someone.  The idea of a being/party that divides the offensive universe is by definition offensive and destructive of the problem that the division attempts to solve.  Therefore, the University of Illinois does not need to take any action as described in the original prompt.

Recall how we separated the idea of ridiculousness of the offensive behavior.  Any possible opposition to my argument by way of writing it off as foolish (or anything similar) is offensive to me, as a white, Italian, middle class, male.  You, as an opposing agent of my views, have now committed the very act that you aim to abolish.  If you still sincerely believe in your position, you would be best to find the nearest sword and fall on it, because any action you take against me is offensive.

———————————————————–

I’m tired of all this pussy-ass everyone love each other bullshit.  People are racist, sexist, ect.  Who the fuck cares?  Why does 75% of the campus here have to cry discrimination at the drop of a pin?  Quit being a bunch of pussies.  Some people judge you based on your race, religion, sex, etc.  Why do you care?  Let them be as racist as they want.

As long as nobody is hurting someone, why does it matter?  Let people exist how they see fit.  You can easily write them off as “uneducated” or “foolish” and be done with it.  Christ, have you ever been to the South?  It’s full of racist, religious retards waiting to discriminate.  The simple solution is to segregate yourself form those people.   Leave, fucking hit the bricks, bitch.  That’s the reason you don’t see me in the South.  They’re idiots, so what?  I’m not there.

Stop being such pussies.  All of you cowards offend me.  Which of you will be the first to stop your offensive behavior?

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Shut the hell up during class.

Posted on March 11th, 2008 by Joe

Attention freshmen:  You do not have to go to class

Why do I have to be stuck next to freshmen assholes who constantly talk during class?  What’s the point in going if you’re not going to attempt to pay a little attention?  I don’t care if you want to talk, just do it elsewhere.  I’m at class, trying to hear, trying to learn, and you’re interrupting the process.

If you don’t want to stay quiet, don’t go to class.

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Get the hell out of my God damn way.

Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Joe

My newest and therefore best motto is “Get the hell out of my God damn way.”

Why have I been the recent and repetitive victim of people just milling about, not actively engaging in going somewhere?  I have no problem with people being outside, enjoying the day, milling about, looking at things, questioning existence (I already found the answer, I’ll tell you another time).  But I do have a problem when you idiots get in my God damn way.

I actually do have some place to be.  I have a class to attend, a meeting to sit in on, or any of the 100,000 important things that I may be up to.  I’d like to carry a dirty fly swatter on me at all times while traveling.  The general public doesn’t give a shit about blocking my way, but I will wager any amount of money that they will back away from a dirty fly swatter.

Really it’s a matter of paying attention.  Lost in thought, and in my way, they don’t pay attention that the world around them still needs to get from point A to point B.  However, a dirty fly swatter constantly demands attention.  Nobody wants fly guts on their skin.  And I can’t imagine a more sobering thing to wave next to  someone’s face to get their attention.

Get the hell out of my God damn way.

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I went to nationals!

Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Joe

I remember a few years ago when we put together a team for “college bowl.” We assembled the brightest of the men of SPD and formed our team “Carpe Mentula” translated “seize the penis.”

The turnout for the college bowl was low. Essentially, it consisted of the current UIUC team, Carpe Mentula, and one other team of friends who just came to have fun. This tournament, as it turned out, was doubling as a tryout for the UIUC team. Sure, fine, great, whatever.

It turned out that the tournament was a loose pretext for the UIUC team to stroke their egos. And stroke they did. The captain of the UIUC team (John, Tom? something like that) was a complete assbag. Every time one of his team members buzzed in to answer a question before he did, he would glare at them, as if to say “you fucking idiot, you’re going to fuck this up and we’re going to get it wrong. I know the answer; you suck.”

At one point the UIUC team was beating Carpe Mentula by over 200 points and he stopped the game to bitch about some rule. The men of SPD thought it was funny, since the game was already decided, he was just bitching to be a bitch. So the rule was argued, the girl running the game said one thing, the captain said another and then justified it by claiming “I went to nationals!” Apparently, this was some sort of insult. The reaction from the rest of the UIUC members was as if nobody else had gone to nationals.

As captain of Carpe Mentula I told moderator of the game that we didn’t care, and just wanted to play. No dice, assbag UIUC captain had to keep making an issue about it. After about 10 minute of argument, the faculty adviser for the UIUC college bowl team finally stepped in and put a stop to it. Carpe Mentula learned that this would be a precursor for the rest of the day.

We played more matches, and the other non-UIUC team seemed like decent guys. Like I said, they were there to have a good time, and so were we. The entire UIUC team seemed to be full of pretentious assholes. They fought to answer first, to be “more correct” and follow rules more closely. The tournament turned into watching a bunch of jerks argue semantics.

The bad feelings didn’t last long after the “I went to nationals!” comment. Everyone took the offensive, making good fun of the UIUC captain whenever possible. I learned to mimic his throw-hands-into-the-air gesture when someone else rang in, and Gonski parroted his smartass duh-of-course tone while answering questions. Eventually, I was claiming that I went to nationals. At one point, the entire room was laughing at the UIUC captain, even the faculty adviser. He was so focused on getting more toss-ups than anyone else, he had no idea that literally, the entire room was laughing directly at him.

Eventually it all ended with the UIUC team dominating the other two teams. As we were leaving, the men of SPD talked about where we were going to grab some lunch. The UIUC team talked (bragged) about who got the most toss-ups, and who followed the rules the best. Are you kidding me? Was it really that important? Does it make you feel good to pound another team that can’t seriously compete?

The UIUC team all went their seperate ways, back to their apartments or dorm rooms, so stroke their own egos and continue their lonely lives. The men of SPD went to lunch and enjoyed their fellowship.

Looking back, I feel bad for the “I went to nationals” guy. I can only imagine that living so anally, the idea of actual friendship is incomprehendable. I sincerely feel a certain fellowship among the men of Sigma Phi Delta, that I know does not exist elsewhere. I have experienced brotherhood and friendship that cannot be replaced, and I know that the “I went to nationals” guy will never, ever experience anything similar.

So to the former captain of the UIUC college bowl team, I have this to say:
Enjoy your pathetic, lonely life you asshole. Your inability to get over yourself will keep you secluded, and deny you of actual friendship. Hit the bricks, bitch.

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