Short Cuts -- T-BLANK-IF

Playing Doctor

I was driving on the 401 today, one of the busiest highways in the universe. It forms a bottleneck through the province of Ontario, Canada. Everyone trying to get through Toronto has to use it. What's worse, the people that run the highways put their heads together and gave every street in Toronto a ramp onto the 401, allowing people to use it more or less as a city street. Gridlock city.

Anyway, there were the usual traffic jams, and it gave me time to listen to morning talk radio. I seldom do that, as I've found that most morning DJs are embarrassingly stupid.

There's usually two guys and a gal. The guys tell pitiful jokes and the gal tells them that they're pitiful jokes. Then she reads a factoid that says how smart women are, and the guys say, "Was that factoid or hemorrhoid?" and everyone falls down laughing. Nothing is more boring than listening to people that hold a "degree" in broadcasting while they laugh over the airwaves.

Teri Hatcher
On 103.5 today, the gal played a clip from Desperate Housewives. In the clip, Teri Hatcher's character tells a doctor she wants to see what kind of credentials he has, to ensure that he doesn't have a diploma from "some med school in the Philippines."

When the clip was finished, the DJs jumped on the PC bus. One of the male morons said, "Why the racism?"

It turns out that this has become a controversy, with people in the Philippines saying that their medical degress are as good as anybody else's. The DJs backed them up, skewering ABC.

My reaction: get over yourselves. For one, the show is a comedy about ditzy chicks. For another, the comment isn't racist. Hatcher's character was not saying that Asian people make bad doctors. Her character is a dope, and as such, she thinks anything outside of her home town might as well be on Mars.

A furor in the Philipines because of an ABC sitcom? Get real. And besides, from everything I've heard, the Philippines don't have good medical facilities. A buddy of mine split his foot open while he was there. He saw two separate doctors. They gave him such great care that the wound went septic and he had to finally have it dredged out when he got to Vancouver.

The Desperate Housewives non-story once again shows me where the media stand when it comes to race. If Hatcher's character had said Somalia, Kenya, or Rwanda, nobody would have batted an eyelash. Just as they don't drop a tear when they hear about another thousand mutilated in Darfur.

The DJs eventually got off their race soapbox and moved on to Britney Spears and her parenting issues. They riffed on her and chortled with delight. Now I get it: Philippines good, single moms bad.

And if they don't?

Jerusalem Day has rolled around again. That's the annual celebration where Iranians march through Tehran and chant "Death to Israel, Death to America," and burn the Israeli flag. It's not as big a news story as Filipino medical degrees, which is why I didn't hear about it on the radio.

Ahmadinejad wants a referendum held in Jerusalem as to where Jews should be allowed to live. His take:

"Let a referendum be held in Palestine. It is our clear proposal to European countries [to have the] settlement of Zionists in Europe or in big lands such as Canada and Alaska so they would be able to own their own land."

See, he's not all bad. He's got some hot leads for Jewish real estate agents.

I especially liked this bit from Breitbart.com regarding the days' festivities:

"Although he subsequently toned down his rhetoric slightly, Ahmadinejad has still repeatedly predicted that Israel is doomed to disappear and questioned the scale of the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II.

The Islamic republic however insists that its nuclear programme is solely aimed at generating electricity for a growing population whose giant oil and gas reserves will eventually run out."

Oooooo-kay.

God? Who's that?

I'm in danger of being labelled a one-trick pony if I keep this up, but hear me out. I have another example of our culture changing direction. Whether it's for the good or bad is for you to decide.

During yet another traffic jam today, I heard this on the radio:

"TGIF! That's right, thank goodness it's Friday."

Just to make sure I heard them right, they repeated it: "Thank goodness it's Friday!"

Sigh.

All right, I get it. You're trying to remove God from the language and the culture. I'm not a religious guy, so I won't rant and rave from that point of view. But please, if you're trying to kill off our heritage and belief structure, try to be more creative. Exchanging "God" for "goodness" makes no sense. They come from the same root. What do you think people mean when they say, "Thank goodness."

If this keeps up, the next ten years are going to look and sound very strange. The American quarter will say, "In goodness we trust."

The Canadian national anthem: "Goodness keep our land..." (Incidentally, when are the PC weirdos going to change the "all thy Son's commands" bit?; then again, these jackasses probably think it's a reference to the "sun.")

The British anthem: "Goodness save the Queen."

They may even have to re-dub the Sex Pistols' version, and that would be a crime. Perhaps the punk rockers will rise up. If so, I'll be there to cheer them on. Honestly, who would you bet on? An enviro-boob with an "EARTH FIRST" sign, or a pissed off punk rocker?

That may be the answer to our ills. Mark Steyn has pointed out that if the 9/11 hijackers had tried to take down a sports bar, they would have had the crap kicked out of them. I say we tell punk rockers and Raiders fans that Al Queda called football a game of sissies and Sid Vicous a no-talent loser. They'd find bin Laden in no time.