Out of the Wilderness

When did we become a nation full of whiny children? And I’m talking about the adults! Just the other day I was driving around downtown Nashville and passed a group of protesters who have been camped out near the Capitol for something like 50 or 60 days. To be clear, I’m in full support of everyone’s right to believe/say/live how they want but the way a lot of angry people go about things these days is absurd. Like these camping protesters. They’ve demanded a meeting with the Tennessee governor (among other demands) to which he said he will not be meeting with them. And good for him! There is a proper way to go about having your voice heard in a way that actually can change things. If you don’t like a statue, immature children think, “I’ll just knock it down.” Adults should know better.

It’s like me wanting my beagle to “sit and shake.” When I say, “Piper, sit,” and she doesn’t do it, no amount of whining or making signs or pouting or camping out near her food dish is going to change anything. It takes discipline, rules, and the proper method to teach her to sit. Then to teach her to shake. Whining doesn’t help anything.

Unless you’re the dog.

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” right? Well, sometimes the squeaky wheel is just annoying and gets replaced with a new wheel.

If you want change, figure out how to make it happen the right way, not by being lazy and expecting everything to be the way you want it right now. Maybe it’s a problem because basically everything we have in America is “on demand.” When cry babies don’t get what they want when they want it, they cry. Because they’re cry babies. It’s what babies that cry do.

Moving on to the recent Emmy nominations (nominees are submitted by their peers, or even submitted by themselves), there is a little bit of whining going on about the lack of Latin nominees this year. One year it’s black folks, the next year it’s gay folks, I guess this is the year for Latin nominees to be the poster children for social justice.

Well, guess what? It’s their own friends and co-workers who are voting or not voting for them. That’s Hollywood, folks. Hollywood is as liberal as it gets, generally speaking, so maybe, just maybe, nominees and winners should be selected on the quality of their work, not the color of their skin or their heritage? Just an idea.

It’s like Joe Biden’s determination to have a black woman as his VP for the upcoming election. Does that smack of patronization? Why not just pick the best person for the job? It could be a man, a woman, black, white, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, trans, whatever! Just choose someone who will do the best work as Vice President. With the Emmy’s… vote for who you think is the best person in any particular category? If they’re black, yay! If they’re Hispanic, yay! If they’re white, yay! Let’s celebrate the best (as if I cared about the popularity contest anyway ).

How’s that for a rant? What are your thoughts on any of these topics? Feel free to chime in with a comment below!

-Out of the Wilderness