Activism? More like wack-tivism!

I saw an always enlightening (for those of you who can't read sarcasm, change "always" to "never") Fox 7 news segment this morning about a series of fundamentalist Christian teen rallies led by some neo-con, God-loving jerk. It was pretty typical stuff. Unfortunately, the most disgusting part was the jerk-off liberal activists protesting one of the events in San Francisco. They were holding signs and calling the Christian teens "racist, sexist, and homophobic." Say what you will about the roles of women and the treatment of homosexuals in fundamentalist Christianity, but there was something a little stupid about 40-odd adult white men yelling at 15 black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, and female teenagers who were excited about Jesus. It would be nice if the teenagers decided to experience a little bit of life firsthand before adopting an absolutist worldview, and it would also be nice if the activist jerks would take all the time, energy, and money they spent organizing their troupe, making signs, and driving to the protest and instead donated to WFMU or the American Cancer Society or took their grandmother or their best friend out to lunch or got drunk on Old Style tallboys. It would be nice if they politely talked to each other and exchanged viewpoints, and gave these opposing viewpoints some thought. I would like to live in a dreamworld where we all respected each other a little more.
On that note, I want to apologize to Pedro the Lion for saying a few months back that he/it was the worst artist in rock. I heard two or three Pedro the Lion songs recently and realized that the college-radio DJ announcing the horrible song as a Pedro the Lion song made a mistake. The songs I heard sound nothing like the purported "Pedro the Lion" song that so offended my delicate ears that cold December morn. In fact, Pedro the Lion is far from being the worst band/man in rock. I still wouldn't buy a Pedro the Lion album, but I would not smash his records over my knee if they somehow were found on my person. I'm going to assume the horrible song I heard was on the Saddle Creek label, or possibly Team Love. Something that bad has to be Conor Oberst-related.

In other hilarious protest news, a small group of people picketed a recent R. Kelly show in Austin. They came up with a great chant: "We want R&B, not child pornography!" What a courageous stand. I wish I had been there to join them. What fun we would have had. What injustice we would have exposed. What outrage we would have expressed. These are the signs I would have made:
"We want to listen to soul,
not have our teenage daughter used as a toilet bowl!"
"We want to hear R&B,
not be covered in pee!"
"Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!"
"More slow jams,
less golden showers!"
"R. Kelly likes to piss on girls. That is ridiculous!"
"I like sandwiches!"
That would have been a great protest.