I got in a few fights when I was in grade school.  Nothing really serious, though.  Sometimes, I would get into a fight without even knowing it.  I was always the “big kid” in school, but I was also shy and introverted, so that sometimes led other kids to think they could take me on and impress their stupid friends by having a go at me on the playground.  Generally these encounters would end without a punch thrown, as the kid would get up in my face and I’d give him a good shove and put him on his ass, which would tend to make him rethink his plan.  A few times punches were thrown, and since I can’t ever remember being hurt in a playground fight, I must have got the better of most of them.  I do recall doubling over a kid with a punch to the gut, but that shithead deserved it.  He threw me in a mud puddle while we were standing in line to go back inside!  Anyhow, the point is, like most every kid I got in some fights at school, but it was nothing serious and certainly nothing organized or planned.

Unlike, say, these kids from Tacoma WA.  Nine sixth-graders decided there wasn’t enough ass-kicking action on the playground, so they decided to form a Fight Club.  You know, like the movie.  Unfortunately, one of them forgot the first rule of Fight Club, and blabbed about it to the local media.  So now they’re all expelled from school.   Normally I’d say the school should have no business caring what kids do with their free time, but apparently some of the fights took place on school property, so they do in fact have a reason to care.  I’m not sure what the point of expelling them was, though.  Yeah, that’ll show those kids!  Throw them out of the place they likely hate anyhow as punishment for forming a mutal beatdown society.

Honestly, isn’t it better that these kids decided to form a club to have mutually agreed upon fights amongst themselves rather than randomly picking on kids like me on the playground?  I’m not saying its the brightest idea they ever had, but I can’t see how throwing them out of school helps.  Wouldn’t a better plan be to encourage their parents to buy them some gloves and maybe help organize some boxing lessons or something?    I mean, let’s face it, some little boys are just naturally aggressive, and focusing that in a direction that keeps them from growing up to be hoodlums is probably a much better idea than just telling them to stop going to school.  But these are the same people who punish kids for defending themselves from bullies, so what do you really expect?

I’m done with the world.  This finished things for me.

I know, I’m supposed to be progressive.  I’m supposed to say “it’s much more natural than drinking the milk of a cow!”  But I just can’t.  Seriously.  I can’t.

I’m just done.

Or, I suppose, I should say they “rap.”  Which I guess is what they’re doing.  I don’t understand any of it, since I don’t speak Sputnik, but I’m sure it has something to do with pierogis and snow.

Oh, hang on.  This article here says they’re rapping about how awesome it is to be a customs official, because they get to steal shit and take bribes all day I guess.  Huh, imagine that, government officials taking bribes?  Who would have thought?

Well, pretty much everybody who has any sense, since Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.  Is it really surprising that the people put in charge of rummaging through all the valuable shit that comes into the country decided they could make a little money on the side by forcing people to pay extra money before they’ll actually do their job?  I understand that’s pretty much par for the course in Russia anyhow, but since customs officials deal with importers and other wealthy people trying to get goods into the country, they can command especially high bribes, apparently.  Enough to pay for lavish music videos bragging about how much they steal from people!

What exactly is the purpose of Customs, anyhow?  Can anybody answer that?  Why are there government people stationed at the border of most every nation empowered to rummage through your belongings?  What’s the purpose of this?

By the way, the fat Batman in the video?  He rules!  I haven’t any idea what any of it means, but I know I love that part.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder of a Muslim oriented New York television station, a station created to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims.  So of course, when his wife filed for divorce, Mr Hassan promptly beheaded her in a ritualistic honor killing.

Ok, sure, he claims it wasn’t a ritualistic honor killing.  He claims it was just a regular killing, in which he stabbed her 40 times in the face and then beheaded her.  He also claims she was abusive and therefore his killing her was justified.  Never mind that he didn’t have a shred of evidence to support his claim that his wife abused him, and never mind that the prosecution did, in fact, have evidence to back up their claim that it was in fact Mr Hassan who was the abusive one in the relationship.

Hassan further claims that he was let down by a domestic violence system that refuses to see men as victims.  Personally, I’d be more open to that argument if Mr. Hassan wasn’t described as “over 6 feet tall and stocky.”  Sure, there are many other forms of abuse than just physical abuse, but do any of them generally require physical retaliation to counter?  And anyhow, almost all forms of abuse are either tacitly or expressly backed up by the threat of physical violence–that’s generally why they’re so effective.

So, yeah.  Great job countering those negative stereotypes!