Oh to be an asshole

(Warning: Sensitive Topic) 

Hello Everyone,  My favourite lyric from Justin Timberlake’s smash hit Sexy Back is “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” Actually, that might have been Martin Luther King, Jr., but I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s one of the two of them. And as much as I try to live my life by the example set by both, I don’t always measure up. Like this week, when I was an asshole. It was in the service of what I believe to be a good cause. But still, an asshole. No matter what you think about abortion, the people who put up graphic images in high traffic areas and accost strangers to push their point of view are assholes. It’s a needlessly harmful tactic. Harmful because it’s potentially traumatizing to people who have had abortions, and needless because it is obviously ineffective. If they actually cared about reducing abortions they’d do things like support science-based sex ed and reducing the pervasiveness of sexual assault. But they don’t. They put up posters and get in people’s faces when they are going to the gym on their lunch break (as was the case for me). So, assholes. And if I were a better man, and more closely followed JT’s (or possibly MLK’s) example, let alone Jesus's, I would have had sympathy for these lost souls. But I didn’t. So I engaged, by giving the most inflammatory answers I could come up with to their inflammatory questions. I didn’t stay and chat, as I had to get to the gym and in general it’s good practice to not feed the trolls as they say on the internet, but for a brief moment, I had their attention. Now, I’m not so egotistical as to think that I was going to convince them of the error of their ways, or that I’m tipping the cosmic scales of justice by being a dick to harmful people, but I will say that there is potentially some small benefit to my actions. While I had their attention, however brief, other people could slip by their gauntlet without having to deal with their bullshit. That's worth something.  Wes

Photos Another idea I’ll steal from the internet is the puppy tax. Any time you talk about heavy stuff, you finish off with picture of a cute animal. Here’s a couple of Arthur and I from a recent ride. He’s the one on the right.