Rant!

Toledoans sound off

published July 26th 2006

Most Toledoans are angry these days, and the worst part is, there’s no-where to rant about it. If you rant on the street, you’ll either get arrested or people will get scared and throw change at you. If you rant on the phone, you may get a visit from Homeland Security. If you rant on an Internet blog, you will be attacked relentlessly by surly teens.

But, there’s one safe haven each year ... Toledo City Paper.

Toledo’s angriest unleashed their pent-up rage about everything from obnoxious semis to the worsening struggle of daily life. And, once again, we’re proud to showcase their vitriol.

Toledo, bring us your sick-and-tired, your broke, your huddled masses freezing or sweating from high utility prices, the wretched refuse who are so p.o.’d they can barely think straight... It’s time to let them lift their legs beside the golden door.

To those about to rant, we salute you.

Languishing language

by Tobias Dean

I prefer to not think of myself as one who rants, but rather one who succinctly and articulately expresses things that irritate, offend and exasperate. I have long been a defender of the lowly syllabic underdog: "ly" which has been languishing, consequential to the impending demise of the distinction between adjectives and adverbs. I am weary of directives to do things different, buy things cheap and drive safe. Sorry. Can we ever stave off encroaching chaos, if, as a culture, we cannot even sustain the simple rules of the language to which we all subscribe?

Unfortunately, that campaign as been put on hold while the rapid decline of an endangered expression is spiraling to critical. This new target of annihilation is not even a syllable, but barely a sound. Are we so hurried, so involved in significant pursuits that we must abbreviate at all costs? Have we no time to pronounce one of the simplest slippery sounds: the "s"?

The use of the apostrophe already signals that one has abbreviated, contracted or otherwise taken grammatically sanctioned shortcuts. So why "baby daddy" instead of "baby’s daddy" and "what up" instead of "what’s up"? Have we not already streamlined and informalized these phrases to the bare bone?

What is next? Or even, What’s next? But, please not, What next?

This is neither irrelevant nor archaic, but vital to the health and wellbeing of our society. Grammar is the best indicator of whether we are developing or disintegrating.

And to whom do we look as standard bearers in the onslaught? Certainly not the professionals! Local television anchors do not know that things become "broken" not "busted" and that the plural of "medium" is "media!" Gadzooks, what irony! Nor, unfortunately, are publication writers exempt. It grieves me to speculate that many of the other articles in this edition will be filled with expletives where a good, thoughtful word would do instead.

Oh, for a hero who upholds the objective and subjective use of pronouns, who knows that the solution to this is not up to you and I, but you and me.

American Nightmare

by Laura Sailer

I made it through high school in a poor neighborhood and went on to college, racking up debt as I went. I did so with the implied promise that is the American dream ... once I graduated I would then be handed a great job and health care. I worked 35 or more hours a week while in school and took no less than 5 courses each semester, again with the promise that it would all be worth it someday.

I graduated college in 2002 with a BA in Sociology, $15,200 in student loan debt, and $8,600 in credit card debt. For the first year, I worked in the field of MR/DD in a job I could have gotten out of high school. I then lasted only three months at a Toledo child protection organization due to that institution placing a higher priority on brown-nosing than social work. I went back to MR/DD. I was hired in at one agency as part-time "with a strong possibility of full-time," yet, two years later, I am still part-time. Simultaneously, I was hired in another MR/DD agency as a substitute, a position that pays okay but does not offer health care. The carrot in front of my nose is that if I do my job well I will someday be full-time with benefits. Two years later...well, you know the rest. I tried for a year to find a better job, found one as a service coordinator for a section 8 housing complex (with benefits!) and was laid off three months later due to funding cuts. I am now back to working both of my MR/DD jobs with no health care and a mountain of debt, burned out and at the end of my rope at 26.

I have worked hard since I was 16. I have not been handed anything...isn't the American dream to work hard and reap the benefits? I have worked hard, yet the basic things one would expect to have in America (health care, a secure job) got lost somewhere along the way. Meanwhile, King George continues to allow his oil buddies to price gouge and cuts essential programs in favor of funding a useless war fueled by fear and greed; sending America's sons and daughters to slaughter and be slaughtered while veterans languish in the streets...

I could go on, but it won't do any good. What would help is if the government mandated employers to have unions, or at least to offer basic, affordable healthcare to both full and part time employees. To raise the minimum wage ... does anyone remember the last time that happened? To force companies to stop sending our jobs overseas and to stop allowing the use of illegal labor in lieu of paying a decent wage. To stop cutting funding to vital programs that assist the growing numbers of people experiencing hardship. I think the new American dream should be for us average folks to be able to keep our heads above water ... just enough to take a breath every now and then.

Liberals aren't real Americans

by Ryan A. Bunch

I’m tired of liberals. I don’t mean to say that I’m going pro Republican, that’d be ridiculous. I make too little money and don’t hate enough people different than me, mostly because they’re my neighbors and I can’t afford the property damage.

What I mean is that I’m tired of the hopeless hope that liberals have, and how demanding they are. They always want you to go to this protest, or ride your bike to that protest, stop buying gas, Chinese products, sweatshop products, foreign cars, quit shopping at Wal-Mart, quit smoking, don’t drink so much, drive less, don’t own a gun, eat hommus, plant trees, be nice to poor people, blah, blah, blah. They’re demanding folks, too demanding for me.

You know why I drive a foreign car, shop at Wal-Mart, smoke, and eat fast food? Because I am an American. That’s what we do, and liberals are losing sight of that. America wants me to be poor and waste what little money I have, and that’s what I’m going to do. I think that Americans have an international duty to indulge in their reputation. How disappointed would you be if you went to Russia and there was nary a comrade wearing a furry hat, drinking vodka? I’d be devastated, I want my Russians getting wasted on rotten potato liquor, just the same as I want my Australians riding kangaroos and my Canadians saying "a-boot." These aren’t stereotypes, friends, these are international expectations and you have a responsibility to uphold them.

Modern day liberals don’t understand that America was founded around convenience. Riding your bike is fine, but a car is faster and that’s a fact of science. Besides, McDonald’s won’t serve you at the Drive Thru on a bicycle, and why should they? Eating on a bicycle is dangerous.

So get off my back and let me drown myself in TV, media, chain stores, alcohol and tobacco. That’s what makes me happy. And if you really love everyone the way you say you do, you’d want them to be happy. Wouldn’t you?

Driving me crazy

by K. Baker

Currently, I drive into Maumee from south I-75 Monday – Friday, exiting to my office area on Dussel/Salisbury Rd. I have been driving into the Toledo area to work for over 30 years.

The truck traffic is tremendous going down I-75 and 23, both north and south. Most truck drivers don’t observe the speed limit – Neither in the 8 a.m. timeframe nor the 5 p.m. timeframe.

Why don’t the police pull them over? They pull over regular autos for speeding, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a semi pulled over….

Fare/Foul?

by Gayle Sargent

Toledo Express Airport is crying about losing fares in 2005 by 23.6 percent. Hmmm. Let’s see now. The last time I wanted to travel from Toledo, I couldn’t get there from here. I had to leave from Detroit. And, another time, I could leave from Toledo if I wanted to pay an extra $100. So, Detroit won out again. These are obviously crocodile tears they’re shedding, as all they need to do is make it more inviting. I guarantee Toledoans would rather leave from here, but they don’t want to spend an arm and a leg to do it. So, get your fares in order, Toledo Express, and you’ll see the percentages going up. Besides, I’m tired of driving to Detroit.

Give Congress a Break!

by Kay Chapman

Congress has some important business to attend to these days. There are countless choices and decisions to be made and important people to meet. Everyday they must choose between free vacations or lavish dinners. Their workdays are filled with urgent golf outings with constituents. At the same time they must constantly find sources for funding their campaigns. This is why lobbying is so important; it actually saves Congress valuable time. Take our local Congressman Paul Gillmor (5th district) for example. Seventy five percent of his campaign funds come from oil and banking companies. With so much of his campaign finances taken care of, he's had more time and has made energy independence a reality and bankruptcy laws more friendly.

The average American voter just doesn’t understand how our continued griping and moaning over little things like affordable health care or border security just puts more strain on Congress. Congress knows what’s really important for this country, folks. That is why the Republican controlled Congress has turned their time and attention to the urgent business of protecting the flag and "traditional marriage." Republicans are wise enough to realize that free speech and the constitution are highly overrated.

I can’t help but admire and salute the dedication of our congress and I fully support their self imposed 26 percent pay raise. After all, what can a congressman expect to buy on a lousy $250,000+ salary (I hear rare coins are a good investment). So this November, remember our hard working congress and all that they do. I think it’s time we give them a break!

America ... What Ails Ya?

by Jason Webber

I’m sick of it, America. And this time I mean it.

Go online to Rolling Stone.com and read the story "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" … and you’ll be just as sick as I am. I’ll share my Zantac with you if you let me have a sip of your TheraFlu. Just call me Typhoid Jason.

In this article, written by attorney/ radio host Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the proof is irrefutable: America got screwed by the Republicans in the ’04 election. And Ohio was the worst culprit of all.

Fact: One in every four Ohio registered voters showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, as a direct result of Republican meddling.

Fact: A consulting firm named Sproul & Associates was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states (including Ohio) and was later discovered shredding Democratic registrations.

But, hey, so what if democracy and individual rights get trampled in the name of Orwellian style politicking, right? This is America — Land of the We’re-Free-If-Bush-Says-It’s-OK and the Home of the Brave-Soldiers-Who-Fight-So-We-Can-Continue-To-Advance-That-Good-Ol’-Fashioned-American-Imperialism Upon Smaller Nations.

So, America, take a flu shot this season before this transitions into pneumonia. The time has come to quit making excuses and apologizing for how critical the condition is. It’s time to stop letting people — both public figures and private citizens — get away with racial profiling, homophobia, labor exploitation and political corruption. To the Tom Noes, Ken Lays, and assorted conduits (Maggie, Donna, Betty and Sally; please invite me to the next bridge game, won’t you?), snitches, scalawags and weasels of America … my condition — and yours — is getting worse.

Best wishes. Get well soon.

Write place for Graffiti

by Phillip L. Kaplan

Dude, you run a dump/dive bar that weekly features vomiting/sex in the parking lot/illegal drug use and brief melees that never amount to much more than one guy going home lonely. I understand you don’t advertise these things and probably don’t encourage them in any way, but they happen in your bar. Yours is a true American bar where interesting shit goes down and people get their alibi straight on the way there because they don’t want to fool with it in front of the officer. So, bar owner, my man, why are you so ob-sessed with your bathrooms being flat gray?

Your whole bar scene is about color, let the people who make it colorful be colorful. Let that bathroom exist as an extension of your patrons. Let all of us own it. No one remembers a bathroom for it’s beige-ness, but when you read "You’re mother’s a democrat – T-mark ’97," then you’ve got a story people tell, a history, and an attraction. And if word got out you let graf get up in your stalls, the really good writers — not just the drunk schlock who happened to remember a fat-boy marker left in the car — will start making your bathroom into a show case.

What are you afraid of, the Pope showing up? Even if he did, it would be sweet to have a Pope tag on your wall — “God’s confidant #1 - peace and doves /BX6 .”

Keep the floor clean, but let the walls live. Be cool. Leave a tied sharpie hanging off one of the stalls. Sure some graffiti is uninspired, but that’s the beauty of the art — it truly is everyone’s and there’s lots of people shouting stuff when they have nothing to say.

What were the first marks on caves? Graf. What if the guy running the cave had a real stick up his ass? That cave would be lame. Your bathroom, bar owner, is a social experiment your patrons are a part of… quit wasting paint on killing it because the markers always come back anyway.

There’s a reason your horn goes honky

by Amanda Wolfe

I could go on about the things that really enrage me, like a student loan debt higher than most people’s mortgages… the fact that just existing is now a constant struggle for all but the wealthiest… but that would ruin the spirit of fun. So, here are some other things that are really tweaking my figurative nards this year.

1. White people cannot cross streets Downtown. Now, I’m no racist, or self-loathing cracker, but an independent observer. In fact, one lunch hour of study based upon this hypothesis yielded the following results: out of fourteen people who crossed Downtown streets like morons, thirteen of them were of the Caucasian persuasion. In fact, one jaywalked out into the middle of traffic and gave a driver the finger when she honked at him. Conversely, whenever I approach a stop sign, the person with the right of way who is waving to me to go ahead is almost inevitably African-American. Here are a couple of tips for white people who need to cross the street:
• "Don’t Walk" is neither a casual suggestion nor a taunt.
• When you cross, walk perpendicular to the flow of traffic, not toward traffic in the center of the road.
• Just because you are leaving the library doesn’t mean you’re too smart to actually look for traffic before sauntering out into the street, far from anything resembling a crosswalk.
2. Let’s talk about Debunkify. I just knew by the sprawling, 1999-dotcom-style ad campaign that this was either an energy drink or another anti-smoking group. I was right on the latter. Weren’t Truth, Stand and all the others enough? I want to debunkify the myth that there’s actually anyone left out there who doesn’t know that smoking is bad for you. Now can I have a few million for billboards? Seriously … take the money and give the hardcore addicts each a big bag of nicotine lozenges. Or better yet, spend it on doing something about the smog that’s hanging over every city in the nation, causing bizarre weather patterns and irreversible damage to the planet. That sh*t is certainly no better for your lungs than secondhand smoke.
3. I am so tired of Perrysburg acting like it’s all better than us and stuff.

Okay, done talkin’.