Make it make sense.

Look, I know I can be incendiary online. I have BIG OPINIONS and very little filter and I accept that. The people that love me accept that. The people I respect accept that and in an attempt to show that respect I try to reign it in when I’m having conversations with them.

Strangers however, I have no patience for. I had even less in the year 2020. I’m willing to put up with a lot of nonsense and there are some things I can just either reply with a inane quip or scroll past without bothering, and then there are the things that I will call out every time.

EVERY. TIME.

When Breonna Taylor was shot by a cop that never should have been in her house, then 12 days later a racist cop kneeled on the neck of George Floyd and strangled him to death while onlookers begged him to stop, the BLM movement rightly mobilized and peacefully protested across the country. A powerful and beautiful community of BIPOC people loudly speaking out against the centuries of oppression and hate that in the year 2020 was still on full violent display in the homes and streets of America.

All of this while a pandemic was starting the slow deadly burn across the states.

And my filter went from “little” to “nil”.

On May 30th somebody posted a video of white protesters trying to break the window of a store and Black people begging them to stop. “This is the problem. You can do this because you’re white but if a cop shows up here WE’LL be the ones they shoot,” said the Black man pleading with them to put down the rocks and leave. I left this comment on a thread about it.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I was banned for 12 hours.

This is not hate speech. White racism is a myth. It can not exist.

FULL STOP.

I didn’t contest the ban because it was stupid and I’m pretty sure I just went to sleep and shrugged it off.

The next day I posted this.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I was banned for 24 hours.

I don’t actually remember what I was commenting on here but I did think that writing “white scum” instead of “white trash” would get me around Facebook’s ridiculous white racism filter THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST. LIKE RACISM AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE DOESN’T EXIST.

By November, COVID-19 was raging all over the country. Tensions were high. Our racist potato president was calling an election rigged before it even happened. Over the course of the year, social discourse in many of the news organization’s comment threads had declined into full on tinfoil hat season and I was… tired. Tired of racists. Tired of COVID deniers. Tired of Trumpism.

Just tired.

So on November 2nd, 2020 I left this comment on an article about a 13-year-old CHILD that had died from COVID-19. This lady had commented to ask what the CHILD’S underlying health conditions were. Disease? Obesity? And then threw on a “condolences” to the family at the end. So sweet of her. When people tried to have a civil conversation with her explaining that she was being rude, she doubled down on the COVID conspiracies that I was JUST. SO. TIRED. of hearing.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I was banned for 3 days. Two days before the most important election in my lifetime.

I’d say that, although I feel a valid critique, this was the first time that I truly deserved a ban. This was definitely bullying. I contested this one just because I felt like why not? Two days later my ban was upheld. For the first time, Facebook actually did it’s job properly. And honestly, the internet was a mess in the aftermath of the election and my mental health was probably boosted by avoiding the site altogether since I didn’t feel the need to read if I couldn’t comment.

By the end of November we had a clear presidential winner, despite what the raving lunatic currently sitting at the Resolute Desk was vomiting daily onto Twitter would have you believe. It was around this time that another QAnon video was being suppressed on YouTube, AS IT SHOULD BE, and I had seen about 74 “Freedom of Speech” comments on Facebook in one day so I picked a random blockhead and was going to explain how the 1st amendment actually works but decided to use as few words as possible to get my point across.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I was banned for 7 days.

In retrospect, I should have know better than to try and circumvent the rules by using a different word. If “white scum” wasn’t enough of a change from “white trash”, I should have known that “twat” was not going to work instead of “cunt”.

Well played Facebook, I’d say I deserve this one too. Although again, a valid and truthful comment.

After the 7 day ban I really started to be more measured in posting. I rewrote comments to respond to the poor fragile white people while not using any slang from our country or the UK or referring to the garbage pile I assume they were born from. I realized there was no winning with the COVIDiots and mostly left them alone unless I saw really blatant lies being spread.

I was tired. But also tired of being tired. You know?

Then today happened.

Today a bunch of backwoods jackboot crybabies stormed the US Capitol building in an attempt to… well, I don’t actually know what they were trying to do and I doubt they had any clue what they were trying to do either after watching them stumble around to find a coherent sentence to string together in an interview.

And, of course, ever single conservative keyboard warrior in existence tried to play this off as a bunch of Antifa “actors” trying to make them look bad. This amused me mostly because what people were admitting when they said that was that THIS WAS A BAD LOOK. Thank you for making our point for us!

This photo of known Trump sycophant Jake Angeli in his horned outfit as an “Antifa actor” started making the rounds which is cute because after about 20 seconds of Googling I found an article about him, read an interview he gave in October, then found his Parler profile. As always, rather than do the same miniscule amount of research it would have taken to understand that that this tweet is a FAKE NEWS, conservatives started to paste the photo in every single thread on ever single post on the internet as “proof” that he is Antifa.

Photo of racist Jake Angeli

When it landed in the comment section of my hometown’s news site I commented on it. I left a link to both news articles and his Parler profile to read for herself to understand who this man is. The woman, of course, tried to use a 2 hour old Craigslist ad for actors to storm the US Capitol building which happened 8 hours before the ad was posted because of course she did.

So I commented again.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I was banned for 7 more day.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I disputed the ban because calling somebody ignorant for spreading misinformation is NOT harassment or bullying or hate speech.

Now I’m banned for 30 days.

Facebook Community Guidelines on hate speech

I’m banned from Facebook for calling willful ignorance for what it is but Char is free to continue to spread lies about the terrorism the entire country watched unfold live in front of our very eyes.

Make it make sense.

Whatever. During my 7 day ban I read 3 books and lost 5 pounds. It’s amazing what you can accomplish while not doomscrolling past the droves of hateful, brainwashed, racist, what trash cunts in Facebook comment sections.

So far I’ve written a blog post for the first time since August so in a way I’m already winning.

Your Idiom is Stupid. But Probably So Am I.

One of my absolute biggest pet peeves is when people use old idioms that have been bastardized into meaning the exact opposite of what they are actually supposed to mean. I know what you’re thinking and fuck you, get off my lawn.

Why am I ranting about this on a day when two Republican COVID deniers died of COVID and the President decided to write a tweet that amounted to using the Constitution to wipe his ass eating mouth? I’m glad you asked and we’ll get to it eventually. Kind of.

If you’re Facebook friends with me you’ve had to hear me rant about this first one annually when it pops up in my memories because I share it EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.

The ever popular quote by narcissists everywhere: “Blood is thicker than water.”

NOPE! This is the full text of the quote:

We like to tell ourselves for a wealth of reasons, mostly mental self preservation, that our family will love us no matter what. And more troublesome, we are taught from a very young age that you have to love and forgive your family of all sins.

YOU DO NOT.

In this saying they refer to the bonds of war, the covenant of loyalty in battle. Meaning that the people you choose to fight beside you, to fight FOR you, those people are the ones that matter. Sure, they can be your family, those who crawled out of the womb before of after you, but they don’t HAVE to be. And that is okay.

Ready for the next one?

Great!

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not going to get into all the reasons I’ve seen this saying tossed around for the last few months because you can figure that out and for awhile now I only blog when I’m in a mentally precarious state of mind and I don’t have it in me to embrace the rage right now.

SO!

In tweets, in Facebook comments, on news articles, on the radio, on TV: “Don’t judge based on one bad apple.”

Nope. This is the full text of the quote:

One bad apple spoils the barrel.

One bad apple isn’t a big deal till that apple infects all the apples around them and pretty soon you go to make a pie and you realize all the apples are rotten and then you have to make brownies instead. Brownies are better than apply pie anyway. FIGHT ME.

But what annoying idiom is the one that set me off at 5:00AM? The often quoted: “You catch more flies with honey.”

Technically it’s true but first I wanted to include the correct quote because all you assholes are saying it incorrectly.

While the original is technically true, flies do like honey more than vinegar, you know what they like more than vinegar? STEAMING PILES OF SHIT. And corpses.

I have no words of wisdom for this one, you guys. This is supposed to warn you that being nice gets you further in life but also honey is kind of boring. It’s just sweet bee food. There are 11 kinds of vinegar and with them you can cook thousands of dishes and clean and make things sweeter or more sour and you can pickle things and deter ants and condition your hair and even sooth the sting of a stupid honey bee.

So I don’t know, don’t be a dick but also be the vinegar?

ANYWAY, this post was brought to you by a brilliant meme posted by Jenny this morning on Facebook.

And my deteriorating quarantine induced mental health. But that’s another post for another day.

No, Shelley Lewis from Dana Point California, that is NOT a HIPAA violation.

Hi! How are you all this evening? I have a fun rant for you. YAY!

Twice today I’ve seen uninformed people try and use HIPAA incorrectly as a privacy violation defense and I wanted to clear it up. Mostly because I’m in a mood today to piss people off (I’ve been banned from two local community groups today alone just for calling out fragile men on their white privilege) but also because I have to take a test on this stuff every single year in order to receive a paycheck and I always thought those tests would NEVER COME IN HANDY. I’m super stoked that after 14 years I’m finally getting to put this knowledge to good use!

The first example was a person saying that an employer asking if you have any medical condition is a HIPAA violation. This is not true. HIPAA has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on your employer asking you this question. The ADA does place restrictions on what your employer is allowed to ask you so it would be good to know what those laws allow both federally and at your state level, but this is NOT a HIPAA violation. It would be like a cop questioning you about why your homework isn’t done. Cops aren’t teachers and don’t give a shit about why your teacher assigned you 7 hours of math, Becky.

The second was Shelley Lewis from Dana Point California. I’m trying really hard not to be too divisive here but trust me when I say “lady” is not the term I want to use to describe her. So this lady didn’t want to wear a mask in the store saying, “I have a medical condition that I’m not allowed to wear a mask and I’m not required by HIPAA rules and regulations to disclose that.”

This Philip DeFranco video shows the lady speaking at 0:28 but watch the whole video to become a beautiful bastard.

So much to unpack here. First, the manager never asked what her medical condition is. Like, dude doesn’t care. Also, pretty sure he’s intelligent enough to know that it would violate the ADA, NOT FUCKING HIPAA. AGAIN, the ADA has guidelines for this situation that you should know if you feel like you’re too selfish to wear a required and life saving article of PPE.

Oh wait, no. Being a dick isn’t a valid disability so the ADA guidelines don’t actually apply to you either.

Second, in this situation if Shelley Lewis from Dana Point California did sue Gelson’s she’d have to prove in court that they violated her “disability” based on ADA laws, NOT FUCKING HIPAA LAW, so I’m like 95% certain this is the last we will hear from Shelley Lewis from Dana Point California in awhile. I mean, it’s going to be hard to track her down since she’s virtually erased her existence from the internet after trying to use her “disability” to become viral internet famous. Be careful what you ask for Shelley!

Anyway! In both situations the Karens claimed HIPAA law which does not apply to either case. Ada violations? Sure, I’ll give ya that one! You’re welcome!

And because I don’t want to leave you without some ACTUAL facts, here is a very dumb person’s guide to who HIPAA laws apply to. And by “dumb person’s” I mean I copied this off the HIPAA website after Googling “what even is HIPAA” which apparently these two internet/keyboard warriors forgot to do before word vomiting their temper tantrums.

As required by Congress in HIPAA, the Privacy Rule covers:

1) Health plans

2) Health care clearinghouses

3) Health care providers who conduct certain financial and administrative transactions electronically. These electronic transactions are those for which standards have been adopted by the Secretary under HIPAA, such as electronic billing and fund transfers.

HIPAA means that your healthcare provider is not allowed to give your protected health information to anybody EXCEPT those entities listed above (all used for billing purposes) without your prior consent. If Shelley Lewis’ psychologist walked up behind her while she was berating a man who is just trying to do his job and was like, “MY MAN! Let Shelley Lewis from Dana Point California in the store! She’s off her meds and I’ve diagnosed her with Raging Karen Syndrome.” THEN it becomes a HIPAA violation.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, lets do this again soon!

Edited to add: If you want to link people a less rage filled diatribe on why mask issues are not HIPAA violations, here is a better article: