John Oliver skewers voter ID laws
The idea that a few million people can't vote in America because of deliberately misguided voter ID laws is reprehensible at best. I can't explain it any better than John Oliver, so take a look.
The best things in life aren't yellow
It's amazing the number of things that are yellow in color that are unappealing. Lemonade is pretty great, but I wouldn't say it's a best thing in life. It's not even that yellow and it's liquid, so there's no chance of it looking like a banana. There might be a banana-shaped drink pitcher or beer mug, though. Closely related to lemonade, but produced in a completely different manner and lacking lemonade's appeal, is urine. Sure, you can pee into your radiator or write your name (poor penmanship included) in snow or even drink it if you are lost in a desert, but it's not considered a good drink. I doubt chilling it or adding sugar would improve the taste. Then again, some people go gaga over coffee beans that a cat shit out.
When I was still a kid and living in Knoxville, I went to summer camp in Virginia. We had a huge lake with a diving tower and about a dozen sailboats of all sizes. I loved sailing. I was a skilled enough sailor to be able to solo a 13 footer that was yellow and shaped like a banana. That was a best thing in life, but not because the boat was yellow. All of my best moments on that boat, tiller in hand, ducking to avoid the boom while tacking, trimming the main for speed, were all spent where I couldn't see the yellow hull. Also, people say red makes things go faster, not yellow.
There are plenty of unpleasant or unfortunate things that are yellow, though.
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Bananas are tasty, but they are off white. Only the peel is yellow, and it tastes awful. Vomit everywhere proudly features corn for some reason. It's odd to think that there might be some mythical, unknowable beast of terror, lurking just outside of our reality, whose dastardly job it is to place corn in every pile of vomit. It's even more disturbing to find corn in your vomit when you haven't eaten any. I don't think I've seen a yellow sex toy, but then I haven't seen a lot of sex toys. Is it wrong to feel sad?
Asian people are considered yellow, though I'm not sure why, but Asian people are awesome. The Japanese make anime and manga (you MUST see Erased on Crunchyroll. Search for it.), there's Thai and Chinese food, there's awesome cars and technological advances, and then the people themselves are just super cool and nice. Asian cultures are diverse, interesting, and an amazing part of this Human Race we share. Then there's sulfur, which smells really bad and can do hideous things to you, at least I think. I'm not a chemist.
So, aside from wickedly cool Asian people and lemonade, yellow isn't good. Glad we could clear that up.
RE: I already support progressive causes. Stop spamming me.
Dear Progressive Friends,
Look, I like you. I'm glad you're working to get the insane Citizen's United overturned and the entire raft of other things we'd all like to see. It makes me feel good to know that I'm not alone, and I appreciate that there are more than enough people to create all manner of organizations that champion our causes.
What I don't appreciate, however, is all of the spam. I already spend enough of my time every day working on the same things you people are. I don't need to be endlessly distracted by cleverly worded emails or calls to help avert potential disaster. I, of all people, know exactly the precipice on which we are delicately teetering.
I suggest that you try a little harder to figure out ways to treat those who work as hard as you do on the same issues with a little more respect. That way, I don't have a mark your crap as spam or unsubscribe. Maybe I might even get to see something useful on occasion, after spending 2 hours combing the newsosphere and blogosphere for anything on Bernie.
LOL. As if.
Thanks a bunch!
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Hey, MSM! Something to say? Just say it!
The flowery language. The academia polished until the shine is almost unbearable. The suggestion of an opinion. The metaphor, obscure references, and sardonic wit. These are all hallmarks common to most pundits, and it annoys me to no end.
Can we please just get to the point?!
In a piece published on the MSNBC site today, Irin Carmon discusses the hand gestures Bernie Sanders' makes while talking. This is how she sums up that piece:
Male politicians can face potential minefields of their own, at least when campaigning against a woman. In 2000, when Clinton ran for Senate in New York, the image of her male opponent crossing the stage during a debate and wagging his finger in her face, demanding she sign a campaign finance pledge, came to define the race. The gesture, which many saw as sexist, or as one of Clinton’s aides put it at the time, “menacing,” was credited with helping her win by 12 points.
There have been no such moments so far in the Democratic primary debates, as Clinton runs for president for a second time. Sanders has been careful to express his respect for the former secretary of state and to keep it professional and largely amiable. He’s also kept on his side of the stage.
Unless you're a political junkie and/or live in the State of New York, you might not recall this event. Back in 2000, when HRC was running for the open Senate seat in New York, her opponent, Rick Lazio, left his podium, walked across the stage, handed her a piece of paper, and wagged his hand. Hillary went on to beat Rick by 12 points because the HRC campaign machine pushed out the clip repeatedly, suggesting that Lazio was being menacing and that the act was sexist in nature. I don't disagree. It was a terrible mistake to make on Lazio's part, and he paid the price for it.
Now, read Carmon's conclusion again. She states a known fact, that Sanders has been respectful of Clinton, and then references the Lazio event. From 2000. From a state Senate debate. Aired on C-Span. So, why not state clearly that Sanders hasn't been threatening, tried to get her to sign some dumb pledge, or wagged his finger in her face?
Ego.
You've been educated. You did 4-7 years in college for just a degree or stuck around to get your Masters. You've penned a dissertation or two. You've been working as a journalist, analyst, and/or pundit for years. You are recognized as an expert in your field. Now you get called to go on MSNBC or Fox News or CNN once, twice, a dozen times. You have arrived. You are a nationally recognized leader in your field.
So, rather than face the difficulty of determining the awareness level of your audience, you just crank up the academia, pound in the complex terms, leverage your most obscure references, and lay down some deftly complicated metaphors and hope that your readers are up to the challenge. What you won't do, however, is just say what you mean.
This might surprise you, but being clear and excising complexity from your prose is not condescending. You won't talk down to your readers. They won't feel like you've abandoned your educational and professional background. To the contrary, they might just thank you. Life is difficult enough to deal with. We don't need Dianetics-grade journalism that requires a dictionary to read.*
Now, it's clear that Carmon's piece isn't anywhere near the L. Ron meter, much less high on it, but she remains unclear about what she's saying, all the way to the end. It's an opinion piece! You CAN make clear the points you want to get across. There aren't any rules, but that's the POINT of an opinion piece; share your opinion! Don't make people work hard for it.
The last thing we need in America now, at a time when class division is at an all-time high, the filters have been yanked off and tossed away, and both major political parties are embroiled in their own version of a civil war, is for our news outlets and primary voices to be unclear. We need to speak clearly, make our points crystal clear, and cut it out with the silly bits that fly over most people's heads.
* my own obscure reference to L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics book which was famously difficult to read without an Oxford dictionary that I explain here because it's the nice thing to do. Not everyone recalls this.
NBC's Grimm is freaking amazing
Peg me as a media nerd, and I'll nod and thank you for the compliment. I love media. The various types of media I consume are just different methods of telling stories. I love books and music and anime and comics and movies and television, but more specifically what I really love is a good story.
NBC's Grimm is a good story.
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In a nutshell, Grimm is a supernatural crime drama that is based on the simple premise that all of the monsters of worldwide myth are real and living among us. In the first seasons, Nick Burkhardt discovers from his aunt that he is an heir to the generations old mantle of monster hunters called Grimm. Yes, those Grimm, as in the Brothers Grimm, the real brothers who collected, wrote about, and popularized much of the folklore we know today. Cinderella is one such tale, but Grimm is not a Cinderella story. Grimm is dark, gritty, heartbreaking, funny at times, and exciting. Grimm is a really good story.
Now, a Grimm is a human who can see Wesen (pronounced 'vesin'). Traditionally, Grimm have accepted their fate and travel wherever needed to root out and kill Wesen. Wesen are creatures who appear to be human most of the time unless they Volga, a kind of shape-shift. There are two kinds of Volga, one which only Grimm can see and one that everyone can see, which is the implied source for various folklore. Wesen , for the most part, live like pretty much everyone else. In the course of his police duties, Nick starts to see people as Wesen, but instead of killing them, he does his best to spare those who aren't harming anyone. I'll just say this isn't an easy task.
Now, I'm not going to detail out summaries of each season. You'll just need to watch. As the seasons pass, Nick is joined by more and more people and many secrets are discovered, and later revealed. Grimm isn't just a Monster-of-the-Week series, it is a deeply complex tale with a number of interconnected story arcs and a bewildering array of Wesen, all portrayed by an excellent cast of characters. This isn't your average Good vs. Evil show and, while some of the drama can be quite soap opera-like, it does draw you in and make it easy to understand the motivations and emotions of the diverse and chaotic world of Portland, Oregon.
Grimm is a really GREAT story.
I just wrapped up Season 4, and it's an amazing twist machine. There were a large number of surprises in that season, and I am looking forward to getting into Season 5, which has a lot to work from. A lot of questions were answered in Season 4, but new questions were raised, and some goals weren't met.