Bread, Meet Circuses

Honestly, what IS the matter with people?

Mind you, I'm not watching the Olympics this year. There are many reasons for this, ranging from wanting to watch LeVar Burton guest-host Jeopardy all the way to absolute disgust at the International Olympic Committee.

Which is too bad, as I enjoy many aspects of Japanese culture and I'd love to see more of Tokyo's interpretations of things. But I digress.

Let's just tot up the most recent asshattery, shall we? (I'm writing this on 29 July, mind you; these things usually take a day or two to get approved for publication. So if I miss something that happened on the 30th, well... sorry about that.)

• At least four female athletes are not allowed to compete "because their testosterone levels are too high." I got news for you; at 52, my testosterone levels are "too high" as well... guess what. Females are not all the same. I know it's shocking. But it's real life, folks.
• One athlete in the US was not allowed to compete because of cannabis in her system. Of course, the fact that the cannabis was in her system due to coping with the death of a parent, in a state where medical and recreational marijuana use is perfectly legal... that's beside the point. Evidently, so is the fact that white male athletes are not held to the same standard.
• Simone Biles is being disparaged - not by her teammates or coaches or medical teams, you know, the people whose opinions might actually matter - for having the temerity to protect her mental and physical health over providing entertainment to the masses of entitled (and from what I have seen, mostly white, male) Americans and Brits. Who of course frame it as "letting her team down" even though the team in question disagree.
• Naomi Osaka was treated so unfairly she went to a different country's team.
• White male commentators have been heard referring to the male competitors as men, and the female competitors as girls.
• A Greek commentator stated that he didn't see how the South Korean Ping-Pong players could see the ball, "because their eyes are so narrow." At least he was fired.
• The Ladies Beach Handball (Volleyball) team from Norway was fined because they didn't wear bikini bottoms. The men's teams wear shorts.

And that's just the Olympics.

That doesn't even include a handful of actual federal and local lawmakers (or hopefuls) in the US trying to claim that their free speech is violated by mask mandates. And lying about things like critical race theory (it really is just teaching the whole of history, not the prettied up bits) or sex ed in the schools (no, teh gayz are not trying to teach your kindergartners about anal sex) or antifa (somehow they have managed to twist it into antifascists being the actual fascists), and denying climate change (to the point that they see nothing wrong in using commercial-grade explosives in the hottest, driest summer on record), and they're still claiming that Covid-19 is a hoax, even as they're dying because they won't vax or mask.

And their asshattery in general.

The fact that most of the loudest people I hear talking about their God-given right to do whatever they want - from refusing masks and vaccines to blowing things up during the hottest and driest summer on record - also claim to believe in the socialist and neighbor-loving lessons taught by a brown-skinned, middle-eastern, Jewish guy, well... back to humans being human, I guess. That's a level of hypocrisy I can't even wrap my head around.

Yeah, yeah, not all Christians, not all cishet white dudes, not all Republicans, etc. Whatever.

I wish they'd walk the walk they talk so much about.

Why do they think that pregnancy is more important than living, breathing children?

Why do they think that being required - or even asked - to wear a piece of cloth over their faces is somehow more oppressive than being enslaved or imprisoned?

Why do they think that learning actual, complete history is so threatening?

Why do they trust people who are trying to scare them rather than those trying to help them?

Why are they so quick to believe that everyone wants to kill them or convert them into some icky-squicky subculture? Are they that paranoid? Or that self-important? Probably the latter.

Why do they think the people they call fragile and wimpy and other denigrating terms are so dangerous that they need automatic weapons to protect themselves from us snowflakes?

For that matter, why do they think that wearing a mask into a grocery store is an indication of fear but wearing an arsenal into a grocery store isn't?

I think it is fear. Fear of change, fear that they will be treated the way they treat others, fear that the status quo isn't permanent.

And that's just sad.