You better hope my ankle gets better soon
Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 14:57

I went to the gym today to use the low-impact aerobic machines because my bum ankle prohibits me from going jogging.

I remembered why I hate the gym.

I used to go a lot, and for some reason the words "sensory deprivation chamber" would always get stuck in my head. Seriously. There's a TV showing CNN right by the elliptical machines, and I can't help but watch it, and I also can't help but look at all the goddamn scrolling things and the stupid sidebars AND the closed captioning and DAMN it's exhausting. I'd go there and start wishing that I had a sensory deprivation chamber at home to get into. It was complete and massive overload. I had to start concentrating on the time left on the machine and dividing it into mathematically-pleasing increments. 3:20, 6:40, 10:00, 13:20, 16:40, 20:00. Or 2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00, etc.

SEE?

Also another reason I hate it is that there are all these goddamn beyotches wanting to use the elliptical machines, not realizing that I'm the only one who should be allowed to use them.

Okay.

But this brings up another point.

Well, CNN brings up another point.

The national news is not always credible.

So a girl from Utah gets kidnapped from her fucking bedroom in the middle of the night, and then months and months later she's found alive. Good news, eh?

I thought it was really good news. I was upset about the whole thing when she got kidnapped. I used to be a 14 year old girl, too. And to think that some girl, with her whole wonderful life ahead of her, could get that all taken away suddenly by some asshole who decides his pathetic disgusting desires are more important than anything else...that just disgusts and enrages me. Danielle Van Dam and Samantha Runion. Some fucker saw a little girl and decided that she didn't have the right to live her life.

And there are thousands more missing kids, not just girls, not just pretty rich white girls.

Sofia Juarez, I hadn't heard of her until yesterday, and that wasn't from the news.

So for one of these girls to actually be found alive, that's pretty good fucking news.

But then you have these stupid reporters speculating, spreading rumors, and reporting downright lies. And then a bunch of idiots watching CNN, maybe at the gym, maybe sitting on their dirty stinky couches while eating potato chips, hear this shit and believe it.

"Oh, maybe she wasn't really kidnapped. Sounds fishy to me. Mormons like polygamy. Hardy har har."

A couple years ago I had the good fortune of knowing some people who made the national news, and the stuff that was reported was so bad it almost made me sick, literally. Speculation, rumors, and lies, that's all it was. And then, once the air cleared and the truth came out, it wasn't a big story anymore and wasn't reported.

I realized then that the things that make the national news are either untrue gossip or they're horrible things that ruin people's lives. Fire in a nightclub! Woman runs over husband! Kids found dead in apartment! Elizabeth Smart could have escaped but didn't because she liked it!

And so a bunch of idiots hear these speculations and suggestions and start making Mormon jokes. I think that Mormons are the last group of people that it's okay (i.e. not politically incorrect) to make fun of. Just replace "Mormon" in any Mormon joke with "Jew" or "black person" or "Indian" or "homosexual" or "woman" or anything else and you have a really offensive joke. But for some reason people think it's okay to make fun of Mormons. Screw religious tolerance. Screw tolerance.

Even people who think they're fucking open-minded make fun of Mormons and they think it's okay because they think that established religion is bad or something and so they think they're attacking ... oh fuck, I can't even explain it.

I just don't like it.

I find it offensive, because most people don't even know what the fuck they're talking about. "Utah's full of Stepford wives and the Smarts were going to marry Elizabeth off soon anyway because that's what they do and they're all naive and ignorant and homophobes and self-righteous..." and on and on and on, making sweeping generalizations.

I heard a woman talking on the radio about lots of things, really, but one of the things she addressed was the media. The media isn't conservative or liberal, they're not controlled by any particular political groups or beliefs. They're just owned by great big giant corporations who want to make money. Money money money. And if great big giant speculative gossip-filled stories are what make money, then that's what they'll report on, rather than some boring report about, oh, the government getting closer to drilling for oil in a pristine part of the world. No sex, no violence, no fun, no headline.