With all this talk of the Westboro Baptist Church lately, I had to wonder what our favorite man of the cloth would think of the Phelps cult and their colorful signs…
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Sarah Palin’s latest ploy to give Fox ratings, as I’m sure you all know, is to play the “retard” card. I don’t mean that in a mean way, as I am personally a huge advocate for the mentally handicapped, I just mean it in an honest way, and honesty is something the Palin family practices even less than abstinence. She demanded that Rahm Emanuel be fired for saying “fucking retarded” and flipped when Family Guy took a jab at her with a down syndrome joke, yet she defended Rush Limbaugh ’s use of the evil R-word as “satire.” The hypocrisy doesn’t end there, however; as it turns out, Sarah made the ultimate retard joke at her son’s expense about two years ago…the day he was born.
According to one interview, Trig is just a modernization of an obscure old name…
The name Trig is a Norse word meaning “true” and “brave victory,” Leighow said. Paxson is an area of Alaska that both Palin and her husband, Todd, feel is “one of the most beautiful spots in Alaska,” she added.
(It would normally be spelled “Trygg,” as if that name could be considered normal.) But according to another interview, it’s a family name…
The grandfather says Trig is named after his great uncle, a Bristol Bay fisherman, while the name Paxson comes from the well-known snowmachining area.
The reality, however, is that the name is just a sick joke. The medical term for down syndrome is Trisomy 21, or Trisomy-G. Often, this is shortened to “Trig-G,” and those born with it are sometimes referred to as “trig” babies. So, in other words, she just named him “Retard.” If he was born without legs, would she have named him “Stubby”? YouTube user onlywhenprovoked summed it up best in this rant…
This should come as no surprise to those of us who have read a lot about the “behind the scenes” Sarah Palin, as opposed to her hard-working mom public image. In Levi Johnston’s infamous Vanity Fair piece, for example, he explains what a lazy parent she is and how she would refer to Trig as her “little retard baby,” and while you could argue that Levi has ulterior motives for smearing Palin, this is far from the only account of her nasty, selfish, and utterly insane personality.
But isn’t that most of these “soccer mom” types? Like the modern revision of the 1950s ideal housewife, these women use their kids like little trophies, or in Sarah’s case, like poker chips in the game of politics. It really blows my mind that this hasn’t been brought up more, considering how terribly insensitive and downright cruel it is to name a kid that’s already going to struggle his whole life to be loved and accepted after his own disability. I dare any of these middle-aged pseudo-feminist mothers to stand up for her now after reading this…she’s going to need a lot more than a Tea Party to weasel her way out of this one.
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This podcast premiered a few weeks ago when we first posted the 2010 Muckmaker Awards (Which, if you haven’t read yet, you should.), but for those who may have missed it, this is the official post telling you to go download it and take a listen. Even if you have read the article already, this extra-long episode goes way more in-depth about who the winners (re: losers) are and why we chose them. Head on over to the podcast page to download it, or just click the link below.
Muckmakers Podcast: Episode 11
Running Time: 105 minutes
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The latest episode of PBS’ Frontline, entitled “The Suicide Tourist,” tells the story of Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old man who was dying from ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He and his wife decided to travel to Switzerland, one of the few countries where physician-assisted suicide is legal, and end his needless suffering.
The one thing that makes his bravery resonate so much with me personally is the fact that he’s an agnostic who does not believe in the soul or an afterlife. Not only does he still want to go through with it, but he doesn’t feel the need to suddenly convert to Christianity on his deathbed out of fear or pressure from what society expects. His decision is not only based in his constant physical suffering, but on sound logic as well, as one would expect from a retired computer science teacher:
“There are people who will look at this and say, ‘No. Suicide is wrong. God has forbidden it. You cannot play God and take your own life.’ …But you know what? This ventilator is playing God. If I had lived without access to technology, chances are I would be dead now.”
The mainstream media focuses on religion and faith so much that they tend to forget that atheists and agnostics must face the same trials and tribulations of daily life, just in a much different way. They are often portrayed as people who need saving of some sort, or people who gave up on faith simply out of bitterness or hatred, yet there is no attempt to do this in “The Suicide Tourist,” and I applaud PBS for that. Craig is a much deeper person than that, and much more representative of true skeptics than the stereotypes and caricatures you regularly see in movies, TV shows, and even on the news.
They have been kind enough to put the entire hour-long episode online for free, which you can watch below. When you have an hour to spare, I urge you to both watch it and consider its message. Hot-button issues can get people so passionate that they oftentimes ignore the viewpoint of the very person who is in agony. Craig is almost at the stage of complete paralysis at the beginning of the program, but thankfully, he is not so far gone that he cannot tell his own story and give his own opinion, which, when it comes down to it, is the only one that should really matter.
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