#SMH Fridays, Week of Aug. 2

Welcome to #SMH Fridays! Obviously, that’s Internet speak for “shaking my head” Fridays, but you already knew that. 

 Here at Red Alert Politics we spend entirely too much time on the internet and some of the things that we see out there are just absolutely astonishing/mind-blowing/horrifying/disgusting/trendy/weird/insert any adjective here. As such, we have decided to start #SMH Fridays as a way to share those stories with you.

In this weekly series, our staff members will share their favorite “That’s So Internet” story in this post, along with their unfiltered commentary. Here’s last week’s edition for the gist of what it’s all about. Enjoy!

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Meghan Keenan

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders live-tweeted the GOP debate last night, using his own hashtag #DebateWithBernie.

Or more accurately, he trolled all of the candidates on Twitter asking why they weren’t discussing climate change and income inequality.

The one part of the debate that Bernie seemed to approve of involved a comment by Donald Trump. Asked about his previous support for a single-payer health care system, Trump said, “It works in Canada, it works incredibly well in Scotland, it could’ve worked in a different age.”

Sanders ended his commentary with a tweet about how Republicans are out of touch. Which makes sense because Americans love Bernie Sanders and socialism.

Ashley Dobson

We’ve all felt that desperation and sadness that comes when our cell phones, our lifelines to the world, are about to die.

Carrying around a wall charger is such a hassle because no only do you have to remember to bring it, but you also have to be close to a working electrical outlet when it happens. And forget about those weird tubelike portable ones. Sure, they charge them on-the-go, but you also have to remember to charge those devices when you get home.

Well, Joe’s Jeans understands your first world struggles.

Meet the $189 #Hello jean. They have a special opening above the traditional back pocket for a oh-so-subtle $49 battery pack (sold separately), which can charge your iPhone 5, 5S or 6 in another special pocket.

I CANNOT with this. I am going to have to have a serious talk with the first lady I see attempting to rock a pair of this ridiculous pants. And they will deserve all of the shade I am throwing their way.

Anthony Hennen

Congrats, Mike Huckabee! By some miracle, you made the most loathsome remark at last night’s debate. At least you can top Donald Trump in one way before your campaign spirals into irrelevancy. After disparaging the idea of transgender soldiers (which apparently threatens Huckabee’s fragile conception of a hyper-masculine military), he displayed a deep and nuanced view of a military’s purpose. “The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things,” Huckabee declared.

Umm.

No.

Call me old-fashioned, but treating the military as a mercenary force to get what you want isn’t a desirable quality in a politician. To define the military in such a nonchalant manner isn’t hard-headed, realistic thinking. It’s a sign of someone who fails to grasp the complexity of warfare. The military does kill people and break things. That’s kind of why it’s so terrible to go to war.

Ryan James Girdusky

Upon returning home from his trip to Disneyland a nine-year old boy named Dexter confessed to his mother and father that he did not enjoy the theme park because it perpetuated racial and gender stereotypes and didn’t emphasize equality.

Dexter wrote a letter to Disney and apparently to Brain Pickings where he emphasized how the park must change it’s ways.

“Like most people we love your attractions, but we found some problems with some of them and those problems are stereotypes. Stereotypes are something that some people believe are true but sometimes may not be true. For example say somebody said “girls only like pink”, that’s a stereotype, some girls might like yellow and not pink. You can never really judge,” Dexter wrote in his letter.

He also touched on the topics of how you cannot judge based upon the social conditions of race and gender.

“We are third graders from New York City at The Cathedral School. We learn about stereotypes, and the impact they have on people’s identities,” he continued. “For instance, in the jungle cruise, all the robotic people have dark skin and are throwing spears at you. We think this reinforces some negative associations, we think you should replace them with monkeys throwing rotten fruit.”

“We noticed that on our trips to Disneyland and Disneyworld that all the cast members call people Prince, Princess, or Knight, judging by what the child ‘looks like’ and assuming gender,” Dexter said. “We think some feelings could get hurt, say by accident you called someone a Prince who wasn’t a Prince or a Princess, or a Knight, or who was identifying differently than what they were called. We suggest you say ‘Hello, Your Royalty’ instead.”

No child wrote this letter. This was obviously done by some chest beating self-righteous parent who thought he could exemplify how well his children are being raised.

For crying out loud, let kids be kids. Let them enjoy being children instead of making them examples of political correctness.

The most important lesson that a nine-year-old should learn is not to grow up too quickly. There are no such things in life as happy endings. If you’re lucky, all you get is a happy beginning.