Tag: discrimination

Queen takes a tough stand in 2013

The 86-year-old monarch is openly declaring her opposition to discrimination because her printer stopped working and she couldn't make any more copies of this picture of her with her black best friend.
The 86-year-old monarch is openly declaring her opposition to discrimination because her printer stopped working, so she couldn’t make any more copies of this picture of her with her black best friend.

After 61 years on the job as the Britain’s Top British Person, Queen Elizabeth II feels it is time to finally take a stand — no matter how many feathers she ruffles — and state for the record that she is opposed to “all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, color, creed, political belief or other grounds.”

Some are speculating that this means that the Queen now supports gay rights, which would typically mean, you know, actually mentioning some variation on “sexual orientation.” It could fall into “other grounds,” but that might just refer to the current British Commonwealth practice of declaring fans of the Star Wars prequels mentally unfit for entering a legal contract.

The Guys have it on good authority that this is only the first of several big declarations from the queen, and that next week, she will have stern words for those who speak without having something nice to say.

… She’s talking about us, isn’t she?

Take it from Snee: There’s no challenge here

This week, I’m gonna do something a little different. Rather than just spout off about the news, I’m going to give you, the readers, a chance to hang up here in the white space of the column with the big dogs.

On December 18, 2009, I issued a challenge to those of you who were angry at my article, “Tattoo discrimination? In the U.S.?!” The rules were simple:

1) If you can show me one (1) photograph that proves there is a non-tattooed prisoner on Death Row, I will get a tattoo, and I will publish it on this site and on yours.

2) The inmate doesn’t have to currently serve on Death Row, but the photo should be somewhat recent, no earlier than 1980. (In other words, don’t bother submitting clean-cut Depression-era murderers and rapists.)

That proved too hard for you. It’s OK; your tattoos probably got you rejected from all of the good schools (::eye roll::).

So, I simplified the rules:

3) I will accept a letter from a reliable source, like from a prison warden or coroner, in lieu of a photograph.

After that simplification — where one would only need to visit, write, call, or email a prison — you would think that someone, anyone, among you sad souls would follow through on this.

Instead, I received this: Continue reading Take it from Snee: There’s no challenge here

Tattoo Discrimination Update: It’s on

On June 19, 2008, I wrote a post that made fun of people highlighted in a CNN article about being too tattooed to work in the United States. Some of you out there took offense. I hear you.

No, really: I hear you. I hear you in emails, in comments (new ones today), on the riverboats where I play high stakes video poker … I’m sick and tired of hearing you.

I even pretended to take your side on November 26, but nobody bought it. You got me: I was being funny again.

You keep telling me that you’re upset that I could be so discriminatory. Well, I think you’re all talk, Internet tattoo people.

In response to the latest bout of me-bashing in the threads (by a Christian, no less!), I’ve thrown down the gauntlet and issued a challenge:

If you can show me one (1) photograph that proves there is a non-tattooed prisoner on Death Row …

I will get a tattoo. And I will publish it on this site.

And on your web site, too, if you have one, proving to your friends how smart and influential you are (despite your ink).

I will seriously do this. So show me what you’re made of, painted ladies and gentlemen of the Internet.

Again, I am serious. That’s what I do: I’m a SeriouslyGuy.

Email all pics (like they exist!) to rick.snee@seriouslyguys.com. Make sure you tell me who’s in the picture and what they’re in for. I will also post this up on our Web site to show you bested me.

Note: Do NOT send me pictures of tattooed professionals or super-nice people, trying to prove that not everyone who has tattoos is evil. We all know there are a lot of stupid nice people out there, and tattoos are really popular right now. Just like Britney Spears.

Take it from Snee: I’m thankful

Every year, Americans do what we do best: sit around a table to observe a once-meaningful holiday because we’d look funny if we didn’t.

Me: Hey, Ted from Accounting. Big four day weekend, eh?

Ted from Accounting: Yep, gonna eat turkey with the family and watch some football. You?

Me: Oh, I’m going to Aruba for the long weekend to collect orgasms.

TfA: Well, that makes too much sense. Freak.

Thanksgiving, like every other U.S.-observed holiday, has auspicious, yet bullsh-t, origins. But if you boil that bathwater past the paper headdresses, you find a story that doesn’t matter anymore today: a group of proto-Americans are starving to death, yet finally scrape up enough farming to survive … until winter starts in earnest.

They’re thankful for managing with what they’ve got to enjoy each others’ presence, which ironically helps spread the cholera.

We don’t have that problem anymore. Even if we catch childhood leukemia, we still get an awesome last wish. (That’s only because Leonard Nimoy can’t catch leukemia from his Make-A-Wish cancer kid.) And we don’t really enjoy each others’ company. If it weren’t for Thanksgiving, entire families would never see each other except to marry or bury someone.

And we definitely aren’t just scraping by. Outside of a certain percentage of poor people, the modern Thanksgiving is a modern festival of consumer distractions. The table is full of food that will go uneaten, and those who attempt to finish it off will slip into a gluttony coma on the leather sofa. This happens while everyone watches a parade full of cartoon characters selling toys, the latests must-see TV stars and the pirate of plastic productions, Santa himself. Then there’s football, which features players goosed up on the latest pharmaceuticals beating Vegas odds so the owner can sell more ball caps to guys trying to find cool new ways to cover up bald spots.

Even the idea of a feast in today’s America is ridiculous. The idea of a feast is to celebrate having plenty when you normally have little. Seen those obesity numbers lately?

So, with all that in mind, here’s my list of the things that I am thankful for this year: Continue reading Take it from Snee: I’m thankful

Men pay two-thirds more than women at bars

Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum (a lady) ruled that Ladies’ Night is not discriminatory against men. She threw out a lawsuit in Manhattan’s federal court on the grounds “that nightclubs are not representatives of the state.”

Oh, really, your honor? Where do bars get their liquor licenses? And where are the state-owned liquor establishments?

Attorney Roy Den Hollander, whose case was thrown out, did not fail to notice the judge’s gender, either.

“He called the judge a feminist and said her dismissal of his lawsuit was consistent with the discrimination embedded in many of America’s institutions.”

When? When will men be free from discrimination? Probably never, because women are pigs.

Tattoo discrimination? In the U.S.?!

Who would think that having large exposed tattoos could still cost gainful employment in the United States? Apparently not people with said large exposed tattoos.

“I think in some ways, it’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ understanding,” said 37-year-old Dave Kimelberg when asked how rough he has it as a high-paid, secretly-tattooed attorney.

According to professional tattooed lady, Sara Champion, she had to find a new job because she didn’t want to cover up her needle-scribblings at work. She left, causing her former coworkers to miss out on “six large tattoos on her arms and back,” including:

  • “a brightly colored sunflower.”
  • “a marigold.”
  • “a rendition of a Dia de los Muertos bride and groom on her upper left arm.” (Wha–?)

Fortunately, she found another job where she’s allowed to be as big of an attention whore as she wants to be.* After all, tattoos are a lifestyle, not a choice.

*Unfortunately, it’s in Danbury, Connecticut.

Update (11/26/2008):
Thanks to all of your thoughtful comments, I have changed my mind about tattoos. You really made me think long and hard about myself and people’s preconceptions, so I’ve written more about our (yes, our) plight.

(It’s a long post about Thanksgiving, so feel free to skip all the way to the end.)

Final Update (4/4/2009):
Obviously people are going to continue stumbling across this article through Google search or however else they look to get outraged online. For all intents and purposes, I’m considering the Tattoo Discrimination Challenge a disappointment, but will keep it open for the day someone pours their energy into thoughtful work instead of petty complaints.