Culture
Are Athletes Wrong to Participate in Beijing Olympics?
Jul 24th
Are the athletes going to the Olympics in Beijing bad people for doing so? I say, yes. Yes, they are. Going to participate in games (and that’s what they are- nothing more), while a billion people surrounding you are held hostage by a brutal communist state, is, in my mind, reprehensible. Which is why I won’t be watching a single second of any of the coverage. I would urge you to boycott the games as well, in any way you can.
Worse than the simple act of participating in some fairly useless (in the whole scheme of things, sports are, indeed, useless comparitively-speaking) is the fact that the athletes are clearly being used by the communist regime to legitimize the policies there. The govenment is using these people to prop up the idea that they’re not so bad afterall. China is a good place. It’s not the evil blight on the world some think it is. The athletes are mere pawns in this silly game. A game the IOC should be ashamed for even playing to begin with.
American companies who are supporting these games should also be ashamed. I’m all for free markets, but propping up a government that threatens the entire world is disgusting, and we should want to have no part in it. Furthermore- we should demand that governments and corporations worldwide do anything possible to overhaul that nation, and if they refuse to stop doing business with them in phases. We can’t cause a global economic disaster- such a disaster would be the downfall of all nations, not just the Chinese. But withdraw from this nation, we should.
Clearly, the tactics used to this point have not worked. It’s still a nation run by insecure thugs (most of whom probably couldn’t get women and had to make up for their weaknesses by brutalizing others); it’s still pumping out mass quantities of dangerous products that are constantly being recalled; it’s still a nation without basic rights, where freedom of expression is nonexistant, and censorship is rampant. It’s still a nation building up its military and implying threats to the US and our allies across the globe. There’s no good coming out of China, and we all know it. Boycotting the Olympics is the right thing to do.
The athletes themselves should put human rights and the very lives of the chinese people above silly ribbons and medals. Everyone taking part is to blame, no exceptions if you ask me.
Michelle Obama’s Anger Will Hurt Obama With Voters
Jul 21st
Michelle Obama, the woman who has never been proud of her country until her husband ran for the presidency, who once said that the US is a mean nation, said the following while campaigning for her husband (the honorable Jesus H Barack, peace be upon Him) in Colorado:
“I wish we had time to be divided. I wish we had time to be upset. To be angry. To be disappointed. I wish we did…Because if we had time for that, then things wouldn’t be so bad right now. Instead, we’re in a place where another four or eight years of the world as it is will devastate the life of some child.”
Mrs. Obama seems to have a penchant for saying stupid things on the stump for her husband. I have a feeling few Americans could ever truly like this woman…mainly because she’s always so angry she makes Hillary look like downright sweet. And what does any of this even mean? In general, I get sick and tired of politicians, most of whom spend their time talking about how terrible things are and how bad off we are, in order to make themselves seem like a good choice.
Worse with the ObamaS, they seem to think they’re better than the rest of us, and they seem to be angrier than most recent political couples. It’s silly to argue they don’t come off as elitist, because they come off as extremely so…but there’s something deeper there. From Michelle’s thesis rant to their 20 year close relationship with their hate-filled anti-American racist church, there’s a massive anger there that I think they do their best to hide. They don’t hide it very well, but they damned well try to supress it. I don’t think that plays well to most Americans.
To this statement in particular- why would you want the nation to be divided and angry and upset? It’s hardly ever positive with these two. And that scares me. I think it scares a lot of us. Some frustration is good- it’s a sign of passion in what you’re saying, but this negativity from these two has got to go. Americans don’t like our candidates to be too angry. Barack would be wise to try to reign his wife in, before she says something on the stump she can’t dig her way out of. From her comments so far, that might come sooner rather than later.
Hilarious Conan O’Brien: Faux Jesse Jackson Obama’s Nuts Footage
Jul 18th
Wow. Laugh out loud funny!
NY Governor Obessed with Race, Says Obama Loss Would Be Racism In Action
Jul 18th
Speaking at the NAACP yearly convention, New York Governor Paterson spoke on the issue of Obama and what it would, or wouldn’t mean for the United States in terms of race:
Governor Paterson, delivering a speech today at the NAACP’s 99th annual convention at Cincinnati, suggested that the defeat of Senator Obama in the presidential election would be a victory for racism in America…
“Can America reject the crucible of race that has dictated and pervaded all of our history to embrace an African American man who has the right polices for the next decade in this country? Can America overlook its past practices that were so grave that in 1820 the great Scottish Whig, Sydney Smith, writing in the Edinburgh Review, said of America: ‘How can they protest the tyrannies of Europe when they torture and brutalize one-sixth of its population?’ How can America get past this and elect an African-American president of the United States?” Mr. Paterson said.
He continued: “Can America go past the crippling way that we’ve shot ourselves in the foot over and over, denying opportunity to people who are bright, to people who are qualified, to people who are able because they didn’t look like us, or they didn’t come from where we came from, or they are from a different gender, or they are from the African continent? Can America push that away and find new leadership? We’ll find out in the next few months what America can do.”
In regards to Paterson in particular- Only an idiot would think of America and harken back to the Edinburgh Review in 1820!!!!! Seriously?!?!
Newflash, that was nearly 200 years ago you brainless moron!!!!!! GET OVER IT ALREADY!! You’re the governor of New York! For the love of all that is holy, that itself proves that racism IS NOT A PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES!!! Reach up, take the chip off your shoulder, and toss it aside.
The refusal to do so will only lead to a worsening of the problem, as small as it may be today. The refusal to become ONE nation under God will, indeed, be the ruin of us all.
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Check out THE NEW YORK SUN’s article on this. They discuss the fact that Paterson, when claiming he’s called the accidental governor (because he’s black, of course, because as a black politician one has to blame racism for everything), tho MANY governor’s have been hit with the same label, and they were white. Bush, in a book in 2001, was called the accidental president. Johnson was called the accidental president as well. But, who cares about facts when you’re busy playing the ‘oh, golly, I’m a victim of racism card’??
Whiny IUPUI Ninny Complains Book Offends Black Workers
Jul 16th
[Updated with book cover below]
Oh dear God in heaven, I live in a world surrounded by morons who seem to have had their heads split open and their brains completely removed.
An incident at IUPUI (Indiana University Purude University Indianapolis- the longest and possibly worst school name ever) started when a white janitor named Keith Samspon read a book called Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan during a break. The book features a klansman on the cover, a burning cross, and Notre Dame’s campus. It’s the story of a riot in the 1920′s between Notre Dame students and the kkk, in which the students prevailed and apparently forced the klan off campus. It’s a positive story against racism and bigotry that happens to feature negative symbols on the front representing the history.
A co-worker complained to the school and Samspon was sent a warning letter.
But Sampson says his union official likened the book to bringing pornography to work, and the school’s affirmative action officer in November told Sampson his conduct constituted racial harassment.
“You used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your black co-workers,” Lillian Charleston wrote in a letter to Sampson.
It’s so sad that in 2008, ANY public institution, let alone a university has a “affirmative action office.” Think about that- the democratic presidential candidate is a black man the media adores. Yet, we have an office…an entire office at a public school dedicated to a form of instutionalized racial preferences. You can still get into school in this day and age by having a certain skin tone, often times over more qualified students with a different skin tone. We still pretend in this country that racism abounds when it clearly does not. Isn’t Obama proof that there’s certianly no need for skin tone-based bonus points? It boggles the mind.
And what does this officer think? That blacks in the community are the most thin-skinned people on earth? I’d wager that most blacks in the school probably support the idea of a book about the positive aspects of FIGHTING the KKK! To be warned by a school official for reading a book of history is absurd. If someone is offended, they need to get a clue, a life, and thicker skin, because if a book AGAINST the klan offends you, you’re never going to make it in the real world.
Sampson says he’s interested in history and wants to educate and better himself. The Indiana Civil Liberties Union and The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education took up the case and defended Sampson’s rights. The fact that school even sent a letter to begin with is a shame, and that they kowtow to whiners who make stupid complaints is a tragedy. A little common sense would go a long way on the modern college campus…but common sense is one major ingredient that seems to be missing on far too many campuses today.
The school eventually sent Sampson a letter apologizing, but only after bloggers took up the case and the Wall Street Journal wrote about the situation. Sounds like a bunch of cowards who screwed the pooch then went to hide under their desks, not wanting to admit they acted like boneheads with this case.
How do people so seemingly clueless get such high paid jobs? I’ll never understand this sad fact of life.
UPDATE: Saddest thing? THIS below is the book cover. I googled the title, and I could only find one book cover for the title, and it fits what the story describes- campus of Notre Dame, burning crosses, and white robes. Notice, though, how the main focus is the campus and the klansmen are a small part of the photo at the very bottom. No matter- such a cover shouldn’t have been reason for a warning, let alone a whiny complaint…but seeing the cover it makes it even more absurd to me.
Not Going Out (BBC America)
Jul 14th
I used to love BBC America. They used to play great British comedies we’d otherwise never see in the US. They used to have what seemed like dozens of series from across the pond, here to satisfy the TV-obsessed with more choices. Then, they started playing nothing but shows where they redo someone’s house or room or gardening or ten hours a day of BBC World news or Newsnight for heaven’s sake! Gone are the days of Father Ted, British Men Behaving Badly, My Hero, or other shows I’d never heard of like Green Wing or Love Soup or Teachers. Some of their shows came from BBC, some came from Channel 4, some from other sources…it was a plethora of British goodness packed into one nice neat channel somewhere in the 200′s on my set top box.
Lately, the choices have been slim. Dragon’s Den, a series about a bunch of mega-rich “dragons” who hear business ideas from contestants and offer up investment money in the good ideas was an interesting series they just started. Robin Hood looks okay, but it’s not really my type of show. I noticed Monty Python is still showing on the channel, but I’ve seen most of them already, and to be honest I was never the biggest fan of the series anyhow.
I miss the days of the old BBC America full of so many choices, you didn’t know where to begin.
One gem I did discover however is Not Going Out. In one word- hilarious. Okay, two words- hilarious and brilliant. Lee Mack exudes an easy going charisma that makes his fairly tame comedy come off perfectly. I’ve only seen him before in The Sketch Show (not to be confused with Kelsey Grammer Presents the Sketch Show which he also appeared in), and I didn’t care much for it. Now I think of it, I remember seeing episodes of that show and wondering how on earth it ever got produced it was so unfunny. The Kelsey Grammer version lasted all of 3 episodes, I think? I think I have the episodes on DVD somewhere? It wasn’t a total waste tho.
In Not Going Out, Mack plays Lee who is living in a flat with Kate…flat is owned by Lee’s best mate Tim and Lucy is Tim’s ex-girlfriend. Tim and Kate are on bad terms but still run into each other. Tim and Lee spend time at the pub, but most of it’s centered around the flat itself. There’s great chemisty between the three, and unfortunately Kate is gone by the second season to be replaced Tim’s sister, Lucy.
Mack’s the funny one here with Tim Vine playing the straight man. Mack’s comedy is usually pretty tame, only occasionally ripping a vulgar joke really. Most of it’s pretty straight stuff- the jokes are simple and sometimes you might not even laugh at them, but Mack delivers it so well you can’t help but chuckle. He’s so charismatic- the kind of guy anyone would want to be around, you can hardly go wrong.
If you’re a fan of British comedy or just need a break from the usual US fare, check this out. It’s in the second season on BBC America- Tuesday nights.
Quickly back to BBC America- whoever programs this channel is set on confusing all of us, I think. They aired the first season of Teachers (from Channel 4), then they never returned the series. They played Love Soup season 1 then left us hanging without season 2. We got Green Wing (a hilariously quirky series with little plot to speak of and a whole lot of craziness) season 1 but no season 2. And season 1 ended with a cliffhanger! It’s like they want to give us bits and pieces of these great British series, then sweep the rug out from under us like that. Let’s hope this trend of showing reality shows, home and garden, nonstop news, and the other boring crap they tend to give us stops soon and they decide to bring back the Britcoms.
Over the years, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with my Amazon.com UK wishlist and have added too many TV DVD sets to even count. I’ve never ordered anything (yet), but hopefully most of these shows aren’t limited to Europe only with some of these absurd licensing agreements they often times have attached to them. If you want to find great British series, I’d recommend checking out the UK version of Amazon.com. Also- check out Acorn Media’s fine selection of British TV. (The fantastic Poirot being one of their big hits.)
Devo – Through Being Cool (Music Video
Jul 14th
Devo – Through Being Cool (Music Video)
So, I’m driving to work this morning. Tons of traffic as they’ve decided to split the expressway into a divided section going one way? It was confusing seeing people driving next too me (going the same way) but on the other side of the median.
I was listening to Opie & Anthony on XM Radio as I always do in the car, but I decided to check to see what was playing on XM44- Fred. Turns out it was Devo with a song I’d never heard before called Through Being Cool.
Awesome.
Fred is a pretty cool channel. Weird eclectic music all the time. Whoever programs the channel seems to love playing Time Warp from Rocky Horror, Flock Of Seagulls, and Devo.
I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what Through Being Cool means. The lyrics make no sense whatsoever. It makes me think of mashed potatoes tho, but I’m not sure if that says anything or not…
Feminists Want to be Despised
Jul 10th
I’m pretty sure most feminists want to be despised. Why else would so many of them constantly do things that ensure a large segment of the population will hate them?
Just found this story out of Atlanta. Some idiot woman named Cynthia Good (head of Pink Magazine) apparently has too much free time, no life, and no common sense…so she demands city officials in Atlanta remove all the “men at work” signs from the highways and roads being built and repaired. Why? Well, because they’re sexist, of course. We need to be gender neutral to make all the poor women out there feel equal.
Atlanta kowtowed to this fool and they’re now changing out the signs to say “workers ahead”. We can safely assume that the women working on the roadways are few and far between, so you’ve got to wonder if any of them were actually offended or if Cynthia Good, the sad little girl who thinks everyone is out to get her because she’s a chick, was doing this for herself.
Worse than the whiny nature of all of this- it’s going to cost taxpayers $22 to cover old signs and $144 to buy new signs. How many hundreds or thousands of signs will need to be changed at what cost? The city is just plain dumb for giving into Good’s ridiculous demands. Taxpayers should do all they can to stop this sort of madness.
I have a feeling Good isn’t going to be making any new friends with this sort of whining. There was never any real offense here, and Good never had a real complaint. The use of the term “men” is a general term used for all people. Unless she and other whiny feminists want to somehow ban the use of the term “mankind” (personkind? humankind?) out of some imaginary insult they believe is directed at them.
When will feminists deal with real issues that have real importance to women? Is it possible most feminists have no good ideas, thus they have to tackle imaginary problems and call it a day? Why do women like Good do everything in their power to make enemies? They do nothing but hurt their own cause and that of all women with tantrums like this. Congrats, Cynthia, you’ve made me want to do everything I can to steer clear of the cause of feminism, and I’m surely not the only one who is going to tick another negative mark against the franchise as a whole.
Researcher: Sounding “Black” Means Lower Wages
Jul 9th
Steven D. Levitt (Freakanomics) linked to this story in his NY Times column:
Fascinating new research by my University of Chicago colleague, Jeffrey Grogger, compares the wages of people who “sound black” when they talk to those who do not.
His main finding: blacks who “sound black” earn salaries that are 10 percent lower than blacks who do not “sound black,” even after controlling for measures of intelligence, experience in the work force, and other factors that influence how much people earn. (For what it is worth, whites who “sound black” earn 6 percent lower than other whites.)
I think we can all assume one thing. In this study, sounding “black” meant sounding less educated. So, people who sound less educated will sometimes make less money? Well, no shit detective! What a shocker. About as much a shocker as the other stuff Levitt points out in his piece o garbage book (yes, we know, abortions are good in the long run) I’m sorry, I just think the book itself is simply idiotic, and I don’t care much for either author because of it.
Then, you have this data:
One piece of interesting good news is that blacks who do not “sound black” earn essentially the same as whites.
How is that interesting news? It’s interesting that the US isn’t the racist shithole liberals want us to believe it is? That people CAN get ahead no matter what their race, as long as they get the education and skills and speak properly? Now, this is my assumption that in this study those who listened to the voices heard “black” when they heard less educated voices.
This isn’t a slam on blacks, but rather the historical view of even most blacks. When you hear black candidates who speak well attack for sounding “too white”, what they mean 99.9% of the time is that the black candidate speaks proper English, doesn’t use slang a lot, thus he sounds not genuinely black. That is an unfortunate view of too many people in this country, and I believe it leads black kids to fail, because they so often have pressure from their peers not to do well, because they will sound or seem too white.
You’ll notice this as well, which supports the argument that sounding less educated is what’s at stake, NOT sounding “black” as the story wants you think:
(It turns out you don’t want to sound southern, either. Although pretty imprecisely estimated, it is almost as bad for your wages to sound southern as it is to sound black, even controlling for whether you live in the south.)
Now, again, not a slam against southerners, but I think it’s quite common for those without a southern accent to look down on those with a southern accent as if they’re less educated. I think, in general, I personally hear southern accents and get the visual picture of people missing teeth while taking baths in metal tubs outside a barn.
Is that wrong? Maybe, but I think that sort of thing is natural to the human ear. When I hear British accents, I often times get the feeling the person is snooty. When I hear a French accent I usually tend to REALLY think the person is elitist. Based on personal experience, I conclude these stereotypes are usually inaccurate, and I surely would never judge someone totally based on their voice, their language skills, etc…but, let’s face it, we all do it to some degree, and it’s part of how we’re made.
Where is it rooted? Why do southern accents make a lot of us think less of a person? Why does sounding black sometimes make us think of those who have little education? Why do far too many black youths put their peers down for sounding “too white”? I’ve no idea, but I do know we make judgements like this all the time.
So, again, it looks to me as if this study came up with a simple conclusion- those who sound less educated sometimes make less than those who sound very educated. Not a newsflash, but simple common sense.
UPDATE: If you look at the actual paper itself (which I’ll admit I found quite confusing), it basically shows that the distinctly black voices had larger gaps in education. Also, I reread the article itself, and I have to point this out:
[LEAVITT:] “When I have Asian Ph.D. students go on the job market in the United States, I tell them that I think there is rampant discrimination against non-English speakers and encourage them to adopt Americanized first names for the job market.”
Is Leavitt really this clueless? You mean US companies want to hire employees that can speak English?! Well, hot damned, blow me away! Imagine those HR people wanting employees who have enough sense to learn the language of the country they’re trying to find a job in!
How is it truly discrimination, let alone “rampant discrimination” to want English speaking employees in a nation where English is the language spoken in all parts outside of small ethnic centers that exist only in relatively small pockets in a handful of metropolitan areas? Just as employers want to hire people that sound like they have higher levels of education, they also want to hire those who can speak the language needed for the positions to begin with. (Shocker, huh?) [Which is the basic problem with the book itself- idiotic conclusions made from data that can easily be taken ten different ways.]
Eric Schaeffer’s New Showtime Series: “I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single”
Jul 6th
Eric Schaeffer has a series on Showtime called I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single, based on his book of the same name…a quest for love as a man about to hit 40, a look at his love life so far and what changes will be made to make these things better…
I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single is odd. That’s putting it mildly. We follow Eric Schaeffer in his quest for his true love, or something as close to that as possible. He’s still single and he’s nearly 40. He doesn’t understand how he’s still single, especially considering he’s a semi-famous actor, writer, and director. It’s easy to see why Schaeffer is still single. A few reasons come to mind immediately- he’s very picky, he’s often immature, he’s sometimes quite annoying, and he’s fairly gross.
The scenes of him out and about on his book tour, trying to meet a girl, just doing his regular thing are cut with these interview scenes with what could be the ugliest girl on the planet- piercings, pale skin that’s almost white (has she ever seen the sun?), those gross ear lobe stretchy things, what looks to be facial hair, gross hair that she clearly spends time on to make it look as “different” as possible. Who is this girl who gets so much screen time? None other than a dominatrix of sorts who spends time sticking large objects up Schaeffer’s butt, spanking him, and all sorts of other weird sexual stuff I’d rather not know too much about.
These scenes tell us a lot about Schaeffer and why a lot of women wouldn’t want anything to do with him, let alone a love affair with him. The stuff this woman talks about doing to him makes him seem gross and, let’s be honest, not very sweet or romantic or any of the other things women usually want men to be.
So, I hate the show, right? No. In fact, I like Schaeffer. I think he’s a talented writer- I loved his film Fall and the FX series Starved. He’s got a quirky charisma that outshines the ickiness he talks about in this series. Even when he’s coming off as totally manufactured and even annoying in the show, that charisma is there under the surface, always semi-visible. Eric has an energy about him that I cannot be denied. He’s often times witty and funny even when he’s being gross or immature…and that wit makes up for the bad for the most part. He sometimes comes off as phony, as if parts of this whole thing are scripted out, but even then he plays the role with comedy and keeps you entertained and involved in what’s going to happen next.
So far, after 3 episodes, the show seems more like a vehicle for Schaeffer in general. It seems less a journey to find love and more like an extension of his book tour and a little bit more publicity for himself as a whole in order to maybe get more acting gigs and keep his name out there. I’m okay with that…so he’s doing all he can to extend his time in the limelight, there’s nothing new about that, and he’s quaint in some sense to the point where you can easily overlook this minor offense.
I’d think the audience for the show is limited beause of the weirdness and the off-the-wall quirky nature of the lead talent, but fans of Schaeffer will surely enjoy parts of it, if not the whole thing.
I will say it again- the worst enemies of black americans are black americans. Unfortunately for ALL blacks in this country, they tend to get lumped together. Polling that I’ve seen tends to flesh out this idea…it seems that most black Americans would probably share the view of Paterson. That’s a sad statement of fact in 2008 America where a black man has a real chance of becoming the next president. Anecdotal evidence tends to back this up as well- that this is a view shared by a majority of black Americans (hell, Whoopi, discussing the issue of race on The View recently, told her fellow hosts that blacks and whites live in a different world in this country. So, it’s easy to see that this isn’t really a fringe view.
I have a feeling most people are like me- they’re fed up with the constant, neverending, belly aching from a group of people that are special in they’re the only citizens that currently benefit from instutitionalized racism in the form of affirmative action. That’s just one example. The constant media tiptoeing over the issue of race is another ordeal in itself. Pundits, hosts, anchors- people are constantly afraid to speak on this particular issue honestly and fully for fear of being called a racist or a bigot. That hurts all of us when we can’t discuss an issue for fear of being attacked for simply bringing the issue up.
I’m nearly at the point where I say- you lump yourself into this mindset, we toss you under the bus. Take the chip off your shoulder and join the rest of us in the real world where imaginary racists aren’t hiding around every corner. If you want to, as a black american, disown this nonsense and take a stand against this group thing, be my guest and I will be the first to praise you for it.
The face of black America in the eyes of way too many people, unfortunately, is this sort of craziness. That needs to change and it needs to change fast, because it only hurts their brand. Let’s ensure that Paterson isn’t the typical black American. That his brand of radical thought is marginalized and ignored. Let’s do our best to ensure that black Americans are like all other Americans. Free to choose their own paths not dictated by so-called leaders whose only common charateristic is skin tone. Let’s toss the Jacksons and the Sharptons of the world under the bus while we’re at it, and let them know that their constant race-baiting isn’t acceptable and it only damages the nation as a whole.