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Imbeciles React to a Story About Swimming
This is controversial, apparently.
I saw a fairly innocuous local news story come across my Facebook feed today. The piece was the sort of semi-fluff that local stations like to show on their 5 o’clock broadcast. The underlying news item was that data indicates that drowning is the fifth-leading cause of unintentional death among all Americans, but that African-Americans are about six times more likely to drown than other ethnic groups.
In the piece, a local news anchor who happens to be African-American goes through the process of learning how to swim. The idea was to do a lighthearted story that spotlights a not-so-lighthearted problem. No one is suggesting that drowning is as serious a threat as, say, heart disease, but that’s why this is a 5 o’clock story and not a 6 o’clock story.
Enter the astute denizens of Facebook. By all means, weigh in, gang:
Posted in Commentary, General Culture and News, Politics
Tagged Commentary, Drowning, Facebook, General Culture and News, Humor, Imbeciles, Politics, Problem-Solving, Racism?, Social Media, Swimming
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BioShock Infinite
2K Games released BioShock Infinite to acclaim and mild controversy a little over a month ago. In development for five years, the game was much-anticipated by fans of the series, but the subject matter raised some eyebrows in the gaming community and beyond.
An internet friend tweeting about his excitement over the game upon its release piqued my own curiosity. I made an impulse buy on the PlayStation Network a couple of weeks back, and powered through it over the course of a few evenings and a weekend.
There’s a lot I want to say about the game, but, before I do, I feel obligated to mention that this commentary will naturally contain loads of spoilers. Anyone considering playing this game in the future, or anyone who hasn’t yet finished the game, should probably stop reading here.
Now, then—the game itself is a first-person shooter set in a massive city in the sky called “Columbia.” The city is run by a religious zealot named Zachary Hale Comstock, and the society that lives in Columbia is based on an extreme vision of turn-of-the-century American exceptionalism with a healthy infusion of religious zealotry and white supremacy. Players control Booker DeWitt, who is charged by an unknown party with finding a mysterious girl named Elizabeth in Columbia and returning her to New York City in order to pay off a debt of indeterminate character. DeWitt must fight through various diverse locales within Columbia in a mostly-standard “move to an area, kill everyone in the area, search for stuff in the area, move to the next area” format in an effort to find, rescue, and escort the girl to the designated coordinates.
Posted in Commentary, Gaming, Reviews
Tagged BioShock Infinite, Booker DeWitt, Commentary, Conservatism, Dan Joseph, Gaming, Patriotism, Quantum Physics, Racism?, Zachary Hale Comstock
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An Incomplete List of Words Katy Perry Has Attempted to Rhyme
Katy Perry is a charismatic musical performer who has delighted millions of fans—including this one!!! Her catchy songs, spot-on pop sensibilities, and colorful videos have established her as one of the top acts in the world.
Here’s an incomplete list of words Katy Perry has attempted to rhyme[1] in some of her many, many ultra-successful, super-duper-mega-hits:
“Room” and “Pool”
“Loving” and “Poison”
“Peacock” and “Bee-otch”[2]
“Barbecue” and “(or a) bruise”
“Intention” and “Discretion”
“Ground-shaking” and “Amazing”
“Greener” and “Water”
“Shine” and “July”
“Floating” and “Glowing”
“Energy” and “Battery”
“Tree” and “Seed”
“Alien” and “Foreign”
“Dark” and “Hard” and “Heart”
“Car” and “Floor”
“Vegas” and “Vegas”
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A stone is heavy and sand is weighty. I hope Katy entertains us ’til she’s 80!
__________________
[1] Or at least pair / couple
[2] I honestly do like Katy Perry (judge away). But “Peacock” is an aggressively bad song. ”Peacock” metaphorically murdered subtlety, then crashed subtlety’s funeral, continued to assault the now-deceased concept, then returned to the cemetery under cover of night, dug up subtlety’s corpse and kept stabbing the body until dawn.
Posted in Commentary, Music
Tagged Commentay, Fun, Humor, Katy Perry, Music, Silliness, Whimsy
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The Worst Commercial on Television
I’ve written and spoken often about my concerns regarding the social norms of younger Americans. There’s a fairly stark line of demarcation between those who made it through their formative years without the influence of the internet and social media, and those who were already texting and e-mailing before they were out of puberty (which more or less covers most of the current population under 30, and certainly those under 25).
I saw a commercial recently which not only underscored my preexisting fears, but fostered new ones. Here it is:
To recap: There’s a nice family dinner in progress. A soft-spoken, late-middle-aged woman begins to tell a story about shopping at the market for items related to her now-aged pet cats.
Hey, It’s Not the End of the World
One of the temptations of our disposable and wildly narcissistic modern culture is to presume that whatever is happening now must be more important than anything that has happened previously—not only more important because it’s happening to us, but also objectively more important.
The 1920 Wall Street Bombing
This happens all the time in a sports context when athletic endeavors filter through the hyperbolic prism of modern media. A great game becomes the greatest game. A bad error becomes the worst error. The best basketball player of the day is immediately compared to Michael Jordan (until the new new best player of the day comes along).
As I’ve said before, nothing can be a “3″ or a “7.” Everything is a zero or a ten. Otherwise, why bother?
Likewise, a recurring theme in contemporary political and news-related discussion is how little people actually know about the basic history of our nation—even among the educated segments of our citizenry.
The Fatal Mistake
In the aftermath of the bombing of the Boston Marathon, about which many details are still unknown, several thoughts immediately came to mind as the limited facts trickled in.
The first was that it immediately reminded me of the London Underground bombings when I was in a study-abroad program in England in 1999. There, a paranoid schizophrenic terrorist created makeshift bombs (this sort of thing wasn’t common enough back then for us to have a fancy term for it like “IED”) that included a large number of nails in order to maximize injury (and fear), particularly among various minority populations. He set bombs for three straight weekends in April before he was caught, killing three and injuring 139. Four of his victims survived but lost limbs. Sound familiar?
The second thing I thought of was how adept I’ve become at desensitizing myself to these sorts of events. That’s sad in and of itself, of course, but that instinct emanates from an even darker place beneath the surface: I accepted it as a given a long time ago that a nuclear weapon will inevitably be detonated on American soil at some point during my lifetime. I often wonder whether our collective psyche will be able to recover from the various horrors that event will entail, the specifics of which I won’t go into here, to say nothing of the massive death count that would dwarf anything we’ve ever seen.
Naturally, I hope and pray that I’m wrong.
But there’s something else, too. As with any terrorist attack, there are always folks on Facebook and Twitter who are quick to label the perpetrators as “cowards.” I believe this to be a huge mistake—a mistake that matters when formulating a crucial understanding of the enemy we face.
Posted in Commentary, General Culture and News, Videos
Tagged Boston, Boston Marathon, Commentary, David Copeland, General News and Culture, Healing, Humor, Old Spice, Sadness, Terrorism, Tony Gwynn, Videos
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SitCombat: The Final Battle
This is the end.
Unless SitCombat reformulates around different shows, this will be the last regular edition of the feature. Archer’s season concluded tonight, leaving only one show left to evaluate. Less than a minimum of two programs quite obviously means no competitive aspect is possible.
The Office, of course, will continue destroying what’s left of its legacy with another few episodes before it wraps for good in May.
As I said last week, after the return of Boom Mic Guy, I’m now openly rooting for The Office to make even worse writing decisions down the stretch. Just go full-on train wreck. Gratuitously kill off Dwight in a farming accident. Have Jim and Pam split up. Randomly turn a character gay. Better yet: Inexplicably turn Oscar straight. Crash and burn.
Either way, this is The Office’s last chance to get a win against another show. Ever.
This was SitCombat for April 11, 2013:
Posted in Commentary, Reviews, Television
Tagged Archer, Commentary, Reviews, Sea Tunt, SitCombat, Sitcoms, Stairmaggeddon, Television, The Office, Toby Flenderson
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The Company Man
Yesterday, April 29th, was World Wish Day. It's a day that celebrates the legacy of the Make-a-Wish Foundation "with wishes being granted worldwide. It's a day to think about how wishing makes our world better."
Those are the words of John Cena, WWE Superstar, and the man who has granted more wishes (over 250 now) than anyone in the history of the charity.
It seems like a good day to reblog this. One of my favorite signs last night was "IF CENA WINS, WE COMPLAIN ONLINE" (I might be paraphrasing). I think people who hate the guy for things that happened in 2005-2007 should probably try to take a more measured view of who Cena is and what he's done. Or, I don't know, maybe that's a little preachy. It's early.
In any event, I like and respect the guy, and I make no apologies for that. And I'm glad he's not a (conventional) heel. Too easy, and, to be honest, I'm not sure I know what a Cena heel turn would even look like at this point. The crowd boos him already. If he "turned heel" in the traditional sense, they would cheer him.
So, as we get ready to see where WWE will take us creatively over the next year, here are some thoughts from about a year ago to keep in mind.
Posted in Uncategorized
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One Long, Last Look at The Office
Last week’s penultimate episode of The Office gave us a frustrating glimpse of what might have been.
In a season filled with mediocre comedy, intelligence-insulting plot choices[1], and inexplicable character development, we got a flawed but good episode centered largely around a familiar dynamic, with Dwight as regional manager and Jim as assistant to the regional manager.
Where has this version of The Office been the last two years?
Instead, viewers were treated to absentee Andy, an Erin / Pete romance that suddenly stopped being referenced at all, a failed backdoor pilot, evil Andy, the Jim / Pam debacle, pathetic Andy, and Dwight being told he was the father of Angela’s baby after all (despite being told by a doctor that he wasn’t in an earlier episode).[2]
But I’m putting all of that aside. Tonight is the final episode of this show. I can’t really call this “SitCombat,” per se, since the only competition for tonight’s finale of The Office is the series’ own legacy. But I see no reason why I can’t use the tried and true SitCombat format.
I’m writing all of this before the episode begins, but my fear is that we’re going to get a run-of-the-mill, C-plus wedding episode. The fact that the creators chose to go out with one of the most cliched plots in television is disappointing yet somehow appropriate.
But, as always, I sit down in front of my television with an open mind. Let’s begin . . .
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