politics

Existentialist Firefighter Delays 3 Deaths

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There is plenty of bad news to go around these days and even when there is good news, like say when a firefighter saves someone’s life from a burning building, you can easily put a negative spin on it. Okay, the firefighter article is just an incredibly funny Onion article that I’ve been meaning to post about for a while now but if you’ve been paying attention to current events, its overall negative and despairing tone just fits.
If you have not heard by now, the busted Gulf well has been capped but it took BP over three months to do so and who knows if / when my kids will be eating fresh Bayou seafood in the future. The Gray Lady features an article today titled A Spill Into the Psyche, and a Respite which talks about how

more than [it being] an environmental catastrophe, the disaster playing out in the gulf has become a festering reminder of the disarray afflicting so many areas of national life, from the cancerous political culture to the crisis of unemployment to an intractable war in Afghanistan, seemingly impervious to whatever plans are dreamed up in Washington.

Fun stuff that definitely touches a nerve, and it doesn’t even include immigration, the environment, the nascent green sector, etc. Great.
Now let’s talk about the crisis of unemployment that was mentioned in that quote above. The Gray Lady featured about two weeks ago an article about the life and times of Scott Nicholson, a semi-recent grad who is having a tough go at landing a “decent” full-time job. This hyper qualified and brow beaten yet still hopeful millennial (which means he is somewhere between the ages of 18 and 29) faces a 14% unemployment rate which approaches the levels for his age group that was present during the Great Depression. Even more fun than the oil spill is a generation imperiled.
So, what is fun that we can talk about? How about that “Inception” took in over $60 million this weekend which once again proves that Nolan just nails it, time and time again. The one thing this sad world needs right now is a nice distraction and this piece of work should do the trick. The last time I had a new born around, I was able to find time to fit in a midnight IMAX “The Dark Knight” showing and somehow I have a feeling that I’ll be finding time to see another late night Nolan flick this time around as well.

politics

The True Nature of Our Economy

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The art imitating life imitating art quality of the Onion sometimes just leaves me breathless with the way they nail the absurdity of our lives head on. Their recent post U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion shines a bright spotlight on the man behind the curtain of our ATM. There is nothing backing up our money except our shared belief / delusion that its worth value. Period.

“It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”

By the time you get to the end of the article, you’ll be laughing too hard to want to get a gun and gold and run off into the woods.

politics

Tea Anyone?

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In the past week, both Time and The New York Times have published very good in-depth articles about the Tea Party Movement. If you ever wanted a good background on the subject, read who they discuss what is fueling it, what various groups fall under its vast umbrella, what these groups believe in and how their natural decentralized inclinations may prevent them from truly being as powerful as they might scarily be. As the NYT says, “it is an amorphous, factionalized uprising with no clear leadership and no centralized structure.” One thing is for certain: they are mad as hell and just aren’t going to take “this” anymore!

If you aren’t familiar with the film “Network” (where the clip above is from), you should know that it came out in 1976 – a good long 33 years ago. The fact that this has happened before just sadly means that will all happen again. Its happening now and that is bad enough.
What can do we do about what is going on? Is anyone truly satisfied with what is happening in this country? I have my own thoughts, but that is for a different post.
Bill Maher is someone who didn’t hear the calling the way Tea Baggers, as he calls those in Tea Party Movement, did. Tea Baggers to him are protesters who are longing for the return of the 1950s in America, who are 99.99% white, are who are extremists and so on and so forth. To hear it out of his mouth, check out the video below from his recent HBO special ” …But I’m Not Wrong” – enjoy.

humor

Eighteen People You're Scared Of on Facebook

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GQ magazine has a great humor piece on the eighteen different types of people on Facebook that absolutely frighten you. We all know these people (and if we have an FB account have a few of them as friends):

  1. The Relentless, Disingenulously Humble Self-Promoter
  2. TheNew Parent Represented, Creepily, by a Picture of Their New Baby
  3. The Person Who Never Met a FB Quiz He Didn’t Like

These are just three of the eighteen. I’m sure you’ll recognize, and chuckle at, all of them. I sure did.

humor

On Names

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Naming a thing gives it power.
Before my daughter was born, my wife and I spent a prodigious amount of time trying to decide on boys and girls names (at the time we didn’t know the sex of our yet to be born child) because we wanted to make sure that whatever we decided upon was right.
Moving backwards, before we got my dog, we also spent a lot of time deciding on the name because again, we wanted to make sure it was right.
Hell, when we got our car after our daughter was born, we batted around a number of names for it before we settled on “Murray.” One because Murray the Matrix has a nice sing-song ring to it and two because we used to live on Murray St. Due to the reasons I mentioned it, just seemed right.
All of that being said, I would like to point out that the Russian energy company Gazprom just made a 2.5 billion dollar investment in Nigera and the joint company is being called Nigaz. You don’t need be to a corporate branding guru to know that someone should have spent more a little more time thinking this one through. Nigaz? Really? For all the times that I mentioned the word right above, this name is just plain wrong.
Via Ben who said, “First rung on the ‘probably not the best name for a company’ ladder”

ramblings

Subway Manners

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I read today on the NYT’s City Room blog about how Matt Muro has been riding the subway on crutches for the past few months and how he has been surreptitiously snapping pictures of those who wouldn’t give up from the seat marked “Priority Seating for People with Disabilities” for him. This post is just a snipit of a longer article that will appear in this Sunday’s paper titled Smile, You’re on Selfish-Jerk Camera.
Matt has posted all of the pics he took at People Who Sit In The Disability Seats When Im Standing On My Crutches.com Yes, the name of the site is really that long and yes, he has started a site just to vent about his subway frustrations (keep in mind though that he never asks for a seat, he just notes who automatically gets up for him and who does not).
I would suggest that you look through the photos and see if you recognize anyone (I didn’t). I think its now only a matter of tme before a copycat site for pregnant women pops us, just watch…

humor

Realy?!?

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One SNL bit that I find consistently funny is the “Really?!?” segment that Seth Meyers does from time to time on the Weekend Update portion of the show. When Amy Poehler was still in the scene, they partnered for a very funny one concerning Rod Blagojevich and while Seth is no Dennis Miller, he thankfully isn’t Colin Quinn either.
Seth Meyers has been growing on me as the “Weekend Update” anchor and part of it is his dead-on “Really?!?” bits. The best one by far was the one he did on Michael Phelps. When talking about how Kellogs is outraged by Phelph’s marijuana use, he says in retort “Every one of your [Kellogs] products sounds like a wish a Genie granted at a Phish concert.”
Check out the entire clip below and prepare to laugh:

I am super happy that Hulu is now around because I can post a clip like this and be fairly confident that years later it will still be there – unlike a lot of YouTube videos I post to this blog which “disappear” over time…