As someone who is required from time to time to check in on what the hellmouth known as the Fox News Channel is hissing about on any given day, I have identified at least three psychological states induced by watching most Fox News reports as an outside, non-insane observer. The first is incredulity that some network shit, somewhere, thought that the topic
would make for a good scare story.
Fox News anchor Heather Nauert announced on Monday that a YMCA swim class that respected the religious traditions of Muslim girls was proof that “Sharia law is now changing everything.”
The Minneapolis StarTribune reported last week that the downtown St. Paul YMCA had teamed up with the St. Paul police department to teach a group of Somali-American girls to swim. To respect the religious traditions and modesty of the girls — ages 5 to 17 — men were not allowed in the pool area during the one-hour class.
The second is the dawning realization that the aforementioned network shits are apparently serious, and that apparently a swimming pool having a one hour class for women only is, far from being a not-entirely-novel notion when it comes to schools and gyms and other sporting and exercise venues across America, an abomination unto the land.
But for the Fox News host, this was a sign that Sharia law was creeping in “towns across the Midwest.”
“Well, the minority becoming the majority at one community pool,” Nauert pointed out on Monday. “Sharia law is now changing everything.”
The third stage is, at least in my own case, the stage where you begin to wonder about the technical feasibility of modifying television microphones to contain built-in tasers, thus allowing for swift and efficient feedback when the viewer is exposed to something so goddamn stupid that immediate, painful electrocution of all involved parties is the only sufficient punishment.
Lest they do this thing again.
“Similar classes are now starting at towns across the Midwest. We’ll keep watching this story for you,” she concluded.
No, I think this taser idea deserves serious consideration. I am just saying—many of these people are themselves stalwart advocates of waterboarding prisoners, and God knows they are willing to dish out pain a'plenty to their daily audience of nursing home residents and people who have lost their television remotes, so they can hardly complain about a bit of much-needed corrective feedback here and there. I am not sure why women-only gyms are acceptable and a one-hour women-only swim class is not, except that I am of course being facetious there and you and I both know it is because someone used the word
Muslim and the usual collection of Fox News racists and bigots and genteel modern-era cross-burners peed all over their executive chairs at the sudden thought that somewhere in all the various religious freedoms that 'Merica Stands For someone spent a single hour of their week being nice to a Muslim child.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—The Bush Administration is out of control:
Bush is enraged that -- get this -- UN weapons inspectors are not finding any hidden weapons.
The lack of a confrontation thus far between Iraq and inspectors has the White House worried that the Iraqi president might be winning the early public relations battle by creating an impression that he is complying. Aides said those fears prompted the president and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) to deliver separate speeches Monday casting doubt on Saddam's intentions.
How about this -- if the Bush Administration has proof that Iraq is hidding weapons of mass destruction, then release this evidence! Otherwise, shut up. It's telling that the best the Bushies can do is whine: |
Tweet of the Day:
Nothing's more American than having tax-payers pay for a sports stadium they'll never be able to afford to enter.
— @Wolfrum
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, we wake from our post-Thanksgiving slumber to find the ACA website works, and Amazon's getting drones.
Greg Dworkin updates us on the state of the website-turning-the-corner narrative, noting Timothy Egan's op-ed, "Rooting for Failure," new sign-up numbers, and where the storyline is likely to go from here. Then, a discussion of one reason Sunday shows suck. No Labels turns out to be a flop. Former Sen. Bob Smith says he's a Republican again, and from NH again. The NSA is spying on the online web surfing habits of Muslim "radicalizers," but it's OK because none of their stuff ever gets out of control.
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