Lessons I Have Learned on the Job

1) If you ever criticize the media's sensationalistic and oh-my-god-look-at-that-freak attitude about covering sexual predators, you are just as bad as the sex offenders.

Thanks, boss, for letting me know I was "defending child rapists." If you hadn't put it so emphatically and hyperbolically, I might still be ignorant to the fact that I'm supporting such activity.

In all seriousness, shows that parade the mentally ill across a stage for the purposes of entertainment and what amounts to stoning -- well, do you really think that's A) an intelligent and reasonable thing to do and B) actually going to help matters?

There are guys who end up on To Catch a Predator more than once. The viewers say, "Wow, you'd think they'd learn!" Exactly. They're crazy. They have a problem. They can't control it; it's a compulsion. They should be put away, not held up as sadistic entertainment. These "news" stories are not a deterrent. You can't pretend that you're helping anyone by producing them. Just admit that you're in it for the ratings, and stop trying to falsely ennoble your Jerry Springer imitation. You're not doing this because you're idealistic, and you want to use the media to help people. You're doing it, because you know slackjawed yokels will be transfixed, just like when they drive past a car wreck.

Why else do We the People eat this shit up? Because it gives us a chance to separate an imaginary segment of the population, put them in a box, and do that thing we humans love to do: Assign blame for our fears and troubles to The Other -- some strange, fundamentally evil and irredeemable outside element. "These people are crazy and evil! We need to defend ourselves from these monsters!" They give us someone to hate, to laugh at, and to punish, while we go about our holy, blameless lives, knowing that WE are good and right. Now let's get back to killing brown people in the name of freedom.

Ugh.

2) When a man is selfish, aggressive, loudmouthed, and intolerant in the workplace, he is justly labeled an "asshole." When a woman engages in the same behavior, she is "strong" and "empowered."

Seriously, haven't we moved far enough along that we can stop congratulating women when they engage in the same sexist and obnoxious behaviors they'd never tolerate in a man? Can we stop pretending that the characters on Sex and the City are wonderful, strong people? Those women aren't strong, they're self-absorbed, petty, mean-spirited children. They represent everything that's wrong with us these days. Instead of kissing their asses for such outrageously expensive fashions, maybe we should be more impressed if they just shopped at Target instead and sent the extra money to Myanmar.

When a man has sex with many women and treats them all like crap, he's a bad guy, but when a woman does it, she's just in touch with her sexuality. The traits we chide in men are lauded as virtues in women. I thought the idea of feminism was that we'd all treat each other with equal respect, not that we'd just turn into two competing super powers like the US and the Soviet Union, in a perpetual standoff.

It makes it really hard to find a date when you're so adversarial.

Anyway, that's a tangent, and what the hell am I talking about?

3) I am old.

I made a Barney Miller reference at work this morning, and my coworker Brian -- a 27-year-old ADULT -- didn't get it. Then I realized that he was probably two when it went off the air.

It'd be less galling if he wasn't also so obsessed with ironic "nostalgia" about the 1980's. For chrissakes, I don't need to buy a faux-distressed Ghostbusters ringer tee -- I can just go to Buffalo and get my ACTUALLY faded Ghostbusters t-shirt out of my parents' attic. (I don't think it'd fit, though.)