Syrian Intervention for Fun and or profit.

There is an old PSA about the right time to talk to your children about relationship abuse.  It’s a steady shot of a man and his son in a diner, sitting uncomfortably as a couple have a fairly one-sided argument in which the man screams at her, degrades her with name calling and intimidation, and then ultimately decrees “We’re leaving;” pulling her out of the diner by the arm.  The father does nothing to intervene or assist the woman, who will likely get a few black eyes when she goes home with her date.  The ad then poses the question: “When should you intervene in an abusive relationship?” or some pointed question similar to that one.  It zooms in closer on the son, who looks like he just realized his father isn’t Superman, and says, “Right now.”  The idea is simple: end the abusive cycle by immunizing your own children against it.  I can’t seem to find the PSA anywhere online, probably because it’s a terrible PSA, and all PSAs should be banished to the festering wasteland of awful and obvious messages cobbled together by hack directors who couldn’t get a job directing a Ronco Food Dehydrator infomercial.

Because No One Asked: Ranking the 80s teen movies I’ve seen, with little to no explanation whatsoever.

As a child of the mid-80s, I grew up watching the TBS edit of many 1980s movies, and wondering why the pretty white people from upper middle class families in those movies had so many problems not related to their family’s socio-economic status.  Looking back, many of the plots are a weird sort of logic house of cards, in that we need to believe that the cliques existed in high school, and that becoming popular was the most important part of life, and would fix everything once the whole school recognized their value.  As is the case with all my lists, I’ll group them into an overarching and overly simplified collection of movies and provide almost no rationale.  It’s like I’m a surly, passive aggressive person with highly anal-retentive needs to provide order and structure to speciously connected things. Remember, these are only the movies I’ve seen.  You won’t find Risky Business or Fame on here. Let’s go!

Setting the Example in the Racial Discussion

In an earlier post, I stated that referring to a desire to have a smaller government and fewer entitlement programs as a libertarian ideology, not a racist ideology.  I also stated that referring to someone who doesn’t think the government should be helping anyone as “racist” is the equivalent of coughing and saying “douchebag” during a debate.  We’ve gotten to a place in our society where we now consider all conservatives to be racist because they want smaller government, which is not the way to have a conversation about race in the United States.  The problem with labeling people who are ignorant as “racists” is that everything then becomes a racist act, and not all insensitive, ignorant, or stupid act or statement is racist. I hesitate to write this, because insensitivity and ignorance are extremely problematic in our culture, and allow us to be apathetic towards suffering, social injustice, and institutionalized oppression of minority classes in the U.S.  I am not advocating for racists.  Fuck those guys (and girls.)  I am advocating for setting the proper example, and avoiding extremism/line-in-the-sand drawing.  While I will always believe that none of us are truly free until all of us are free, it isn’t helping anything to instantly label well-meaning but misinformed people, or people who have a different opinion as to the role of government as “racist.”

How Breaking Bad is like the Little League World Series

I’m not insane, and this isn’t the dumbest comparison you’ll ever hear, but it’s close.  I realize comparing a show about a man’s slow descent from Edward James Olmos in “Stand and Deliver” to Denzel Washington in “Training Day” with the August rite of passage for 10-12 year olds in the baseball playing world is patently ridiculous on its face.  I want to assure you that this is not about Danny Almonte and the oldest twelve year old you’ve ever met.  No, this is about the general structure of the Little League World Series, and its similarities to Walter White’s rise to power.  A note about spoilers: They are prevalent after the jump.

Grammar Nerd Wednesday: Why is Poor Grammar a Subject of Ridicule?

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

            When you think about it, poor grammar is a failure of sorts.  When someone is bad at mathematics, no one stands around laughing at them for not being able to understand factorials, or thinking “Jesus, that guy is dumb!” But, when my Boss’s boss sends around emails with no concept of the correct usage of your/you’re or there/their/they’re, I judge.  It’s not fair, but I judge.  Hell, these posts are all about judging those who exercise poor grammatical usage.  Why is it so much more open to ridicule/a bellwether of intelligence in a person?

Me, turned all the way up to 11

As someone who routinely has to interact with 18-22 year olds as a part of my job, I am keenly aware that there is an opinion that the current crop of semi-employable assholes are perceived as being so tuned out to the point of rudeness.  I disagree.  I believe the current generation of college students and young professionals are entirely tuned in, but they are tuned in to themselves, almost exclusively.  They have the capability to pay attention to others, but they would rather be focused on their own personal experiences.

Grammar Nerd Wednesday: Ten Brain Cells or Less

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

I am fascinated by grocery stores, including all of the studies to market products to us.  Shelf height is based on average eye level of men and women, with the most valuable shelf space being that which is at eye level.  It works, too. How many times have you made a random purchase where you had to bend your waist at more than a 45 degree angle, or strain to reach the top shelf? There are the Malt-O-Meal bagged cereals which briefly made an ad campaign out of walking like a duck to buy their product from off of the bottom shelf, but clearly that hasn’t exactly gone gangbusters for them.  I am always acutely aware of which brand of Soda is on special each week, so I can prepare to buy either four twelve packs of Pepsi or Dr Pepper for ten dollars (they alternate between Pepsi and Coke/Dr. Pepper product sales most weeks.)

My Dad, the armchair pundit: The 2014 Midterm Elections

Every so often, my dad, lifelong Republican with an odd mix of entitlement protection, gun rights, and personal responsibility beliefs, will make bold political predictions based on nothing other than his own experiences and opinions, which are rooted in no political science.  Often times, these prophecies are apropos of nothing.  He’s the anti-Nate Silver. I’ll do my best to faithfully recreate his claims here.  This may become an ongoing series.

Grammar Nerd Wednesday: Words that aren’t words edition

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

Proper nouns and technology have created a whole slew of words that aren’t really words, and different usages for them.  That’s not what this is about. Continue to name things with stupid -ly suffixes out in Silicon Valley.  This is about words people use, which aren’t actually words, but people think they are. Each word is followed by a brief explanation, which is a veiled dig at your intellect, and designed to make you feel like you're insignificant for not knowing that these words aren't actually words.  In reality, you're insignificant because you're reading my blog at all.  That's not something anyone who is significant actually does.

"On Civil Disobedience" Redux: Manning and Snowden

Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are two whistleblowers, accused by the United States government of conspiring to release classified information to the world that exposed the actions of the Armed Forces, and the extent of the US Government’s data collection policies.  The reaction to both has been a mixture of labeling them heroes, and labeling them traitors.  The truth is, Snowden had the more damning information, but Manning is the more honorable of the two.

Grammar Nerd Wednesday: There is no Irony in "Ironic" by Alanis Morrissette.

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

The lyrics are in large, italic font. My dickheaded comments follow each line.  Before we begin, let's just define, without explaining, "Ironic."  That will come later:

i·ron·ic  

/īˈränik/

Adjective Using or characterized by irony. Happening in the opposite way to what is expected, thus typically causing wry amusement.

"We Need A Dialogue About Race" - Meta interactions do no good.

Don’t get me wrong; the United States populace needs to have an honest discussion with itself about race, but the royal “we” cannot have that discussion until we understand how to confront these things in an open and honest way.  What we are getting now is neither honest, nor a discussion.  In fact, we aren’t really even getting dishonest dialogue about race.  We are getting chatter about having a discussion or dialogue about race, which is way worse than just saying, “Ah, fuck it.  Our institutions are still mired in the racial inequality of the past, and until we all fulfill George Carlin’s prophecy of forming a beautiful, non-racial, caramel colored population, we aren’t going to move past thinking white culture is superior, black culture is inferior, and stay out terrorists and Spanish speaking people.”  Why is it worse?  Because it’s hope out of Pandora’s box when it comes to those who really TRULY just want to live equally and focus our energy on solving other problems like war and poverty.  The problem is, we are looking to the wrong people to start the dialogue, we aren’t even talking about race, and the terminology we are using is non-starter language designed by people who want to not talk about anything.

Grammar Nerd Wednesday: That sound effect affects my sound.

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

Affect and effect – why do we do this to ourselves, English speaking people?  I’m serious.  Why do we make words that look similar and sound the same?  Why don’t we just call one “affect” and the other one “turdsmack?”  It’s like read – meaning “I like to read!” and read, meaning “I used to like to read until someone dripped searing hot transmission fluid in my eyes!”  One should be “read” and the other should be “lookyknow.”

The George Zimmerman Verdict: How Not to React.

There are plenty of facts about the Zimmerman Trial and Verdict that are disturbing.  Here’s a chain of events that is not in dispute by either the prosecution or the defense: George Zimmerman spotted Trayvon Martin, thought he looked “suspicious,” called 9-1-1, was told not to chase Trayvon Martin, did so anyway, confronted him, fought with him, and then shot and killed him.  I feel like Kevin Bacon in “A Few Good Men” describing the Code Red to the Jury during opening arguments. Let’s be clear about the fact that the entire interaction was precipitated by a guy who decided, against the advice of law enforcement, to chase down a person who wasn’t doing anything wrong.  If he had just turned up ‘Winger’ on the 80s station, we’d never have heard of either Trayvon or Zimmerman.  This pretty much makes him a shitty human being.  In the aftermath of Zimmerman’s acquittal, much of the country was outraged, and a multitude of responses were registered, including lamenting the United States government, political grandstanding, and egotism.  You’re welcome to have an opinion about the outcome, and welcome to react to a heavily publicized case.  Don’t do it like an absolute moron.

Grammar Nerd Wednesday: Impacted: not what you think it means.

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

You’re smart, right?  You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.  When you speak, it doesn’t sound like a mouth-breathing troglodyte happened upon some dictionary featuring solely monosyllabic words and utterances.  In fact, you even try to use words that mean things other words mean, but that people don’t always use, like apoplectic for angry, or elated in place of happy.  Lately, at your job, when you’re sitting in mind-numbing meetings, talking about TPS reports and synergy, you’ve been hearing your coworkers and supervisors talk about the effect certain actions have on others, they’ve been saying “impact.”  Like, when your company wants to build a slurry pond upstream from a community’s reservoir using graham crackers and squeezy cheese as building materials, they need to investigate the impact it has on the environment.

We are all unfamous celebrities.

I simultaneously love and hate going to book signings. I love going to book signings because I like hearing the author speak and answer questions, especially a guy like Chuck Klosterman, whose business card should just read “Professional Conversationalist” and we should all just agree that he doesn’t have to pay for things anymore. He’s a national treasure.

The wrong way to be right: Tim Wise is the worst kind of correct

A few years ago, I was in graduate school in Columbus, Ohio, working at a small, private, liberal arts institution that had decided to go sick with its staff development budget and hired Tim Wise to speak to all the student staff members.  He spoke for about an hour, and discussed race in the United States, and the necessity for affirmative action, race conscious laws, and ways to even the playing field in a system that is inherently biased in favor of the dominant class, A.K.A. white people.  I was completely engrossed.  I must say, I had been considering, for a time, the notion that maybe we needed to take our foot off the pedal when it came to affirmative action, and that plenty of laws and practices were so slanted in favor of minorities that they actually became something like “reverse racism.”  As it turns out, and through a couple of decent stories and turns of phrase, Mr. Wise was able to convince me of the contrary.  I walked out of the speech and hopped on Amazon, wanting to purchase his book “White Like Me” to further engage myself in his discussions about race in the United States.  As the years passed, and I hopped on to the twit-o-sphere, I saw that Mr. Wise had a twitter account.  He was such an engaging speaker, and his books were so encouraging for young white people who wanted to make a change in the United States that I figured the account would be full of commentary about the world at large, and nuggets of wisdom about the institutional racism inherent in our society.  I don’t remember first following him, but as I peruse his twitter feed, I realize, he is a colossal asshole.  He’s not wrong about much of what he is speaking about, but he chooses the most tone-deaf, holier-than-thou way to convey his message, and it’s completely off-putting.  Judging by his interactions with some solidly leftist twitter followers, I’m not the only one who believes this to be true.

Grammar Nerd Wednesdays: For the love of God, apostrophe rules are not that hard!

This is the first in an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

I received a blast email from a party promoter who owns a few high-end bars in the West Village and Kips Bay areas of Manhattan promoting a Fourth of July weekend party at a club in the über-chic Hamptons, which, for those who don’t know, is the tip of Long Island, and usually connotes the South Fork of the two pronged end to New York State’s easternmost point.  The heading on the email is:

“4TH OF JULY WEEKEND IN THE HAMPTON’S”

While there are thirteen (THIRTEEN!) rules for apostrophes, just focus on the ones that you will probably run across (and afoul of!) in your day-to-day keyboard mashing, like this successful entrepreneur, party planner, and all-around bro-sef extraordinaire who somehow gathered my email and lumped it in to his party promotion list.

Apostrophes denote possession of an object by a proper noun or name.  A really easy way to remember to use this is, if the object being possessed is mentioned, you should probably use it. Example: That is Bill’s stack of fetish porn magazines.

-As a caveat, apostrophes are not to be used with possessive pronouns.  They already connote possession.  That is why they are called possessive, dipshit.  Example: You know Bill? That is his stack of fetish porn magazines. (His being the possessive pronoun)

-For plural possession, make a noun plural first, and then make it possessive.  If all the states have deficits instead of just one, State becomes States, and then you toss an apostrophe on to the end.  “The states’ budget deficits are a problem for the nation.”  Plural possessive is never “States’s.”

Apostrophes denote contractions.  Contractions take out a word and make you sound like a local yokel.  It’s good for fitting in if you’re new in town and trying to make friends or assimilate for the purposes of gaining the trust of the townspeople and then it’s BAM – the ol’ fork-in-the-eye. Example: “Don’t say that’s something I can’t do.”  It’s the same as “Do not say that is something I cannot do.”  But if you say the second sentence, everyone will think you’re Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and burn you as a heretic, because this town likes Deep Space Nine, and you MUST be a terrorist.

-As another caveat, sometimes words end with the letters “n-t” and don’t have an apostrophe.  “Want” is one of those words.  So is “wont.”  If you see “wont” and it doesn’t look like it should mean “will not,” it probably means “apt” or “likely.” It’s not wrong.  Don’t flame the author on the message boards.

Apostrophes never, ever, EVER denote plurals.  Ever.  And I mean fucking ever.  Just add an “s” to the end of it. Or an –es, like boxes and foxes.  Obviously, there are some crazy ones out there.  Mouse becomes mice. Buffalo stays buffalo.  There’s even this weird sentence that is grammatically correct: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” Then there’s the plural for ox: oxen.  You’ll never need to toss an apostrophe in when all you want to say is “there are more of them than just one.  If you have seven cats, you say “I have seven cats.”  Not “I have seven cat’s.”

Side Note – This includes acronyms! CEO, short for Chief Executive Officer.  If you want to talk about a meeting of multiple chief executive officers, you say CEOs.  If you want to connote possession for ONE CEO, it’s the CEO’s disdain for the working poor.  If it’s possession for multiple CEOs, then it’s the CEOs’ general distaste for speaking with hourly employees.

It.  It screws everything up.  It has rules all its own. For starters, when using a pronoun like “it,” there is no gender, and there is no plural.  “It” is singular.  Always. 

-To show possession with “it,” you do NOT use an apostrophe.  “I just took my P.T. Cruiser in for its 5,000 mile oil change.”  But, why wouldn’t the apostrophe-possession rules carry over?  Here’s why…

-To show a contraction with “it,” you MUST use an apostrophe. “And I think it’s going to be a long, long time ‘til touchdown brings me ‘round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at all.  Oh, no.”  This is why Its means possessive It – it can’t be the same as It’s, which means It is.

-Its’ is not a word.  Not at all.  The Apostrophe following an ‘s’ means the subject is plural, like “Those magazines’ covers are all sticky.”  Multiple magazines, all possessing covers.  It is always singular, so “Its’” would mean It is plural, which it is not.

There are plenty of other rules – just look over that link at the beginning, but in general, you can avoid 97% of your apostrophe mistakes by asking yourself these few questions:

Am I trying to say this noun (person/place/thing/idea) possesses some quality or object?  If so, I should use an apostrophe and an ‘s!’

-Is this noun plural?  Make it plural, then add an apostrophe! (“The foxes’ tails are long.”)

-Is this word I’m using actually two words in one (and missing a few letters,) like how an El Camino is a car and a truck (and missing common sense?) I should use an apostrophe.

-Am I trying to say that this noun is plural? Then I should absolutely not use an apostrophe.  Ever.  Especially in an email promoting a party in the Hamptons, which is plural, because there is a Southampton, a Westhampton, a Bridgehampton and an East Hampton.  That’s four Hamptons!  Plural.  The Hamptons.

-Am I using the word “It” and I need to either make it possessive or plural?  Because if that’s the case, I should just get drunk.

Scheduled Posts

As part of an effort to get me to actually post more on this blog, since at least 1100 times, people have been intrigued enough to click over to it, I'm going to start doing regular posts, and trying my best to create some type of schedule, which could change or be scrapped in an instant if I find that others really don't like it.

Mondays: Entertainment/Sports/TV/Movies or something
Wednesdays: Dorky rants about the English Language
Thursdays: Politics/News/World Events

As always, please post in the comments section.  Call me a dickhead, tell me I'm as ugly as my opinions, anything.  Hurl your empty liquor bottles at me as a way to exorcise your personal demons, electronic-style.

Born in the U.S.A. is Patriotic, but not the way Slacker thinks.

I received a Slacker Radio email today, July 3^rd, promoting the 33 Greatest All-American Divas, Classic Springsteen, and 4^th of July radio stations.  I almost always just delete emails from Pandora, Slacker, Spotify, and the like, but anything that references my buddy Bruce, I’ve gotta read.