Fremdschämen

You're probably familiar with the concept of schadenfreude, a German word meaning to take pleasure in someone else's misfortune. It's a common enough feeling and it never takes much for a person to drop the word whenever it's remotely relevant; it's kind of like "irony" was before we ruined that word. But there's another German word, similar but with a different spin and at least as relevant, that I think we're going to want to be familiar with.

Fremdschämen (first recognized in German dictionaries in 2009) is the feeling one gets from being crushingly embarrassed for someone else. The state of experiencing fremdschämen is simply "fremdscham," without the cool yet mildly annoying umlaut.

Fremdschämen, I hope you'll agree, is at least as useful a concept as schadenfreude. Whole friendships are built on navigating through and around fremdscham-wracked moments. A chunk of modern day child-rearing is geared toward avoiding fremdscham. Fremdscham is the reason The Office worked. To feel fremdscham is to be embarrassed not by someone else, but for them, indicating that some degree of empathy is necessary. Fremdschämen, then, is a perfect complement to schadenfreude because experiencing it tells us that we are not sociopaths.

Having mentioned embarrassment and sociopathy, it may finally be time for me to turn to Donald Trump. Alright, here's the deal: I don't want to talk about Trump. One of the benefits of my semi-voluntary hiatus was not having to think about the campaign this deeply. I had plans to do some other things with this blog in the next few months--pleasant things. But there's a short-fingered gorilla in the room and, with him addressed, I'll be able to move on. So hold your nose with me, reader, we're going in.

Trump, a poorly-carved Jack o' Lantern that's been left to rot since October, gets most of his press these days for remarks that have been construed as offensive. And racist. And misogynistic. And incoherent. And untethered from reality. And these are all valid observations worth examining. But there's another aspect of the way he expresses himself that I would like to address.

You may have seen the great video about Trump's use of language that first made the rounds a few months back, although that had more to do with his sentence construction. What I'd like to explore isn't new for Trump. Consider his longstanding nickname: "The Donald." It's just his name with "the" in front of it. It's simple, it demonstrates way too much self-regard, and it's profoundly stupid if you spend any time thinking about it. And he was just allowed to do it. Anyway, I fear that his stranger communicative habits have been lost in the more recent (and, again, valid) concerns over the substance of his campaign rhetoric. This is worth exploring because I believe that these tendencies are indicative of a deeply-troubled mind and we need to dissect it before we unleash it on the world in a presidential capacity.

Tweets, short as they are, are not be the best metric for a person's perspicacity. However, this is Trump's most prolific medium (never mind that a real billionaire shouldn't spend so much time on Twitter) and provides a more direct path to his brainwaves than anything else available to us. So let's dive in.

Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2013

A little weird, right? Now, I don't know a lot about IQ tests (I refuse to take them because no result I could get would ever make me happy). But I do know that Trump's IQ does not appear to be a matter of public record. Here's The Mirror speculating on Trump's IQ based on where he went to school (weak, I know, but it's the best we have) and coming out to a decent estimated score. But even they hedge their bets and conclude that his IQ is "far from genius level."

So unless Trump wants to release his IQ test results (along with his school records and his tax returns while we're at it), we're just going to have to infer his intelligence based on his actions. Like his 2006 assertion that the mid-aughts were a "great time to start a mortgage company." Or the time that he brought his mistress along on a family vacation. Or the time that he addressed the fact that his campaign is a tire fire, hemorrhaging staff:

I am getting bad marks from certain pundits because I have a small campaign staff. But small is good, flexible, save money and number one!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2016

We must allow that Trump is at least addressing his hilarious campaign problems. That's refreshing in its own way, right? Hillary Clinton would certainly never acknowledge such problems (she'd never have to). It takes a brave man to acknowledge his short-comings. Not that Trump has any of course. Just ask him--he can do anything.

So many people have told me that I should host Meet the Press and replace the moron who is on now. Just too busy, especially next 10 years!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2015

No they didn't. Okay, maybe a couple of people on his payroll told him that. After he asked them. What could even prompt this very specific ambition that he'll never pursue? Why would Agent Orange even want to host Meet the Press? One possible answer: Trump-coverage would generally become more positive. After all, by November, he'll probably be out of credentialed media to tail him, so Donald Trump's Meet the Trump, Presented by Donald J. Trump, Classy™would be a good way to keep the free publicity train on the tracks. By the way, we all understand that what Trump really wants is his own media empire, right? It's pretty clear when you think about it.

Lambasting the media, in addition to providing red meat for the marks, helps bolster Trump's insistence that the media is hostile toward him. Truth is, the media hates Trump like a fat kid hates cake. I could say that he's just too easily offended, but somebody already put that criticism to him and Trump replied in Strong Bad-esque fashion: "I don't have thin skin... I have very strong and thick skin."

Weird boasts. Questionable claims to money/strength/power/good taste. A connection to professional wrestling. Okay, look, I worked really hard on a "Trump is Strong Bad" post and it didn't pan out. Let me have this analogy.

This assertion from a man who still occasionally mails photographic evidence of the adequateness of his finger-length to Graydon Carter, original coiner of "short-fingered vulgarian." Twenty-five years after Carter first anointed him with the title! Short-fingered or not (he is), that's a damn long time to hold a damn weird grudge. And this guy may possess nuclear codes come January. The lack of both self-awareness and of the very meaning of the words he tosses about so cavalierly (whether orally or digitally) should be enough to prompt fremdscham in any decent person with a bare minimum of compassion.

I know some of you may think l'm tough and harsh but actually I'm a very compassionate person (with a very high IQ) with strong common sense

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2013

Who the hell talks like this?! Apparently, no superlative cannot be applied to him (by himself), however irrelevant to the conversation at hand. I truly don't know if this is about burnishing his brand--the brash, self-aggrandizing patter that I find gross but, to his credit, has probably made him what he is today (alternate take: maybe all of his successful business deals are a result of the other party getting sick of listening to him and just giving him whatever he wants to make him go away). And maybe that's just been translated in to the what we're seeing now: this ham-fisted (small hams, obvs) manner of selling himself and his campaign.

Or maybe this is just the way he talks to people in every day situations: "I didn't fart in the elevator, okay? But if I had, you would have loved it. I have the best farts, the best-smelling farts. People tell me I do and I believe them."

In the proper spirit of fremdschämen, maybe you aren't able to feel embarrassment for Trump. I don't blame you. But whatever happens in November, Trump is a reflection of a part of us now. A considerable chunk of America has voted for him. Many more will do so in November, if only to avoid voting for Clinton. Even if he loses, history will forever record that he won electoral votes. And that "if" is necessary because, in a two-party system, events beyond the control of either candidate could easily slip Trump past Clinton just in time for a horrifying election night.

I know it was funny at first. We had all gleefully anticipated the schadenfreude we'd experience when he had to tuck and run before the primaries were even over. But now we're looking down the barrel of a self-fremdscham. And I'm not even sure if there's a word for that. Get to work, Germans.

The Gaping Maw of Hubris Incarnate

The baseball gods are, as we know, cruel. And petty. And though their brains are composed largely of syphilis clusters, they are not like to forget slights. Anything from banishing a goat from a stadium, to taking a simple bribe, to trading away the greatest player of his generation. It's always a seemingly simple affair, but one tug on that string can render future decades of toil futile. None of this is new information.

Why, then, did the hubristic souls who run the Washington Nationals' fourth inning Presidents Race decide, on the cusp of their first ever division title, to overturn years of carefully planned sideshows when everything had been going perfectly well? That's when the gods strike you down: when you think yourself as a shaper of the baseball narrative rather than a passive spectator. And then, with the evidence whipped out for all to see, dangling in their faces, they continued the farce for a further two years. And just recently, with a second division title under their belt, with Teddy having topped the leaderboard for the first time, they chose to have him win during the first game of the NLDS (Nats lost), and then not once but twice during the eighteen-inning marathon that was Game 2 (Nats lost... again). And something tells me if they hadn't been finished off in San Francisco, the organizers would have displayed a similarly suicidal lack of pattern recognition upon their return home.

The Nats let Teddy win again this game in the 2nd presidents race. They foolishly mock the #teddycurse
— Chris Moody (@moody) October 5, 2014

Maybe it's not entirely fair to blame the PT Barnums of the world for giving the mob what they want. It was the fans, after all, who fast lined up behind Teddy, the underdog with the infectious smile. It was a natural fit: a franchise trying to forge an identity in a new city, with a new(ish) name, struggling to win--just as they had been in Montreal. People like saying that they like underdogs and with the President's Race--in the form of Teddy--Nationals fans had one. A guy you never expected much of and who never won, even though he really wanted to. Maybe not the best representative of one of the wealthiest, most insulated metro regions in the country, but well-suited to the look that a fledgling team and fledgling-er fanbase likes to imagine itself wearing. "Let Teddy Win," they demanded. "Teddy 2012!," they cried. Indeed.

It is at this point that I pause and wonder again just why Teddy was the loser-president for all those years. Theodore Roosevelt is, with no real exception, our most magnificent president. Not best, per se, but certainly the one that the others would be most terrified of being compared to. He could take every other president in a fight... and I don't mean one at a time. You've probably heard the story about the time Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin on his way to deliver a speech--and then went to deliver that speech before bothering to seek medical attention. If Theodore Roosevelt were a Batman villain, he'd be Bane, whose physicality makes you forget his nimble brain--he's almost too perfect. And yet, there Teddy was, for years on end--the butt of the jokes of the other three presidents (now four, for some reason). It's almost as though no serious thought was put into this mascot race whatsoever.

No longer. Teddy has been unleashed upon the Nationals' fortunes, carving their playoff stints into Panama Canals on two separate occasions (trust-busting was the better analogy there, wasn't it? Oh well, next time). And if his double-header win in Game 2 is any indication, the operators of the Presidents Race have stubbornly refused to acknowledge the gods' painfully clear signals.

So. Has it been worth it, Washington? Have the victories of your hydrocephalic god-king been worth this turn in fortunes for an emergent franchise? Will you continue to sacrifice promising young talent on this grotesque altar that you've built? Or do you now comprehend the needless horror that you've inflicted upon yourselves? Let him win no more. Wipe the record books clean. Only then may the gods see fit to smile upon Navy Yard.

Or maybe the Nationals just clinched the division too soon and went up against a still-loose Giants squad. I don't know. But it's definitely one of those.

So... Something Happened

Wow, it's been a while. I'd like to say that school is sapping all of my time and energy but that's not totally accurate. I should probably explain. You deserve that much.

I woke up in the hospital a couple of days ago. And I had no memory of the previous few weeks. Well, not no memory. Just a very... fuzzy one. I recall some faces and places, filtered through the dense fog of a particularly intense bender. Doctors said I had been in a coma after battling a particularly intense "fugue state," in which I was totally out of my own head. That explained the empty memory bank. They wouldn't go into details, of course. That's doctors for you: they'll go on in excruciating detail about your brain aneurysm or your clogged aorta or your unhealthy-looking genitals. But when you want to know what the hell happened, then it's all patient-confidentiality this and the-police-will-explain-further that.

That's about when the police showed up.

Turns out that, in my fugue state, I had... done some things. To storefronts, peoples' homes, city property. I maimed more than a few people; broken bones, mangled limbs, one poor guy's rectum will never work right again. Plus the emotional trauma. Witnesses described a miniature tornado. Cars tossed into buildings, police and firefighters swatted away like so many mosquitoes. It required a t-shirt cannon loaded with two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper to take me down, apparently (they weren't sure why that ammunition was more effective than the t-shirts and rubber balls they had been using before; something about the sugary explosion, perhaps).

I'm being sued by at least a dozen different people and organizations. Best case scenario: they consolidate it into a single class action so I can save time and only end up out a few tens of thousands of dollars.

The officers asked if I had any memory of why I had done this. What might have initiated my fugue state (I wasn't aware that cops were in the habit of encouraging an insanity defense, but they were very nice gentlemen, given what I had done to some of their colleagues). And, truthfully, I didn't. One moment I was searching the Internet for some blog material, the next I was in one of those beds that jackasses like to move up and down, up and down (I only did it eight or nine times).

The last thing I really recall, with any kind of clarity, was stumbling upon that old Fanta commercial on YouTube. You know the one, with the impressively obnoxious song: "Wanna Fanta, don't you wanna, Fanta Fanta."

Then I... blacked out... and I don't know how or... or... blacked... wanna... Fanta... it's like--oh, oh God no... wanna FANTA WANNA FANTA!!!!!!

America's Dump

America sends its garbage to Washington and then blames the city when the stench wafts their way.

This Washington Post piece has been popular with the "at least you don't have to live with them" crowd, but because it was run under the Post Local heading it's not getting much play elsewhere. Also because no one gives a shit about the human beings who, you know, live here. Actual Washingtonians are, as I said when this masturbatory exercise got underway, an abstraction to most of the country. Granted, people are often abstractions when they live far enough away, but at least it's kind of fair to blame Texas for Ted Cruz. The District of Columbia, for reasons both arcane and childish, has no representation for itself. The only advantage to that situation is that Washingtonians are the only Americans who cannot share in the blame for any of this.

Not that it enures us from the shutdown. Just the opposite. We're the ones who live and work here, either for a government that legally prohibits us from working, or for a business that's suffering because federal employees' cash is no longer flowing their way (each had been hit badly enough by the sequester). Even those of us not directly impacted know people who are: friends and family who are angry, bitter, and bored, and who will receive back pay... eventually. In the meantime, they get to deal with the psychic impact of being forbidden from doing their jobs. For an area that has a lot of people who chose to go to work serving their country, that's no small thing.

But it's, "Washington," sneered through the fat lips of the ill-informed, that's the problem.

Example: a group of truckers thinks it'll be a good idea to "shutdown the Beltway" this weekend. The plan, near as I can tell, involves driving slowly around the Beltway for the duration of the three-day weekend, blaring their horns and generally forcing all and sundry to listen to their loud irritation with the present state of affairs. For those not familiar with DC's geography, the "Beltway" is I-495, a highway that branches I-95 into a loop around (not through) the District. It's an important road for drivers in the area and we all hate it. Here's the kicker: the politicians to be protested aren't using it. Many of them stay here on weekends and those that don't have little use for 495, anyway (Reagan National Airport is inside the Beltway). Capitol Hill will not hear your sirens. And I promise Obama will have no use for the road this weekend, either: he has a helicopter. The only people this punishes are the people who live here and who will need to get somewhere. They are the ones who will bare the brunt of the frustration of people who, in line with the inconvenient realities of democracy, are at least partly responsible for our terrible, terrible government.

As if it wasn't bad enough getting bullied by the self-serving, under-qualified, assclown members of Congress who manufactured the problem. Members sent here entirely by other people.

We, as a nation, have to live with the mistakes of the American voter. Some more intimately than others. Washingtonians don't ask for an apology (apologies mean more when they're volunteered); just an acknowledgement of that fact. And for everyone else to stop lumping them in with the other people's refuse.

Thank You For Riding Metro

Ever run to board a train before the doors close, only to have the person in front of you inexplicably slow down as they pass into the car? As though the "door closing" chime is a signal sounded just for them, telling them they've made it and can relax? Not even because the car is packed--the car may, in fact, have ample standing room and a few single seats to spare--but because they can?

Good news: it turns out you're allowed--nay, encouraged--to push them. Just shove 'em out of the way! Kids, too? Sure, kids love to learn. Old people? Of course! After all, if anyone needs to hurry it along, it's those with pressing time constraints. After all, you have places to be and you'd have been there quicker, but you really needed to rub one out before you left your house this morning and that's other people's problem now.

So remember to push the douchebags and thank you for riding Metro.*

The DC Metro system sucks. I spent a long time trying to defend it in a country that sorely needs better public transport options, but I gave up that ghost a while ago. The delays, the single tracking, the myriad safety issues, the rising costs; indefensible. I won't catalog all of the infrastructural failings and institutional incompetence/apathy. There's a perfectly good blog already doing that. Although: the green line meltdown last week? Metro cares not for meltdowns.

And the riders help nothing. It's not just the anecdotal incidents I've witnessed, such as the tourist family posing for a photo in front of open train doors at Metro Center during rush hour. Or the group of a dozen or so grown-ass men and women (we're talking mid-to-late forties) taking turns indulging one another with their horrifying, music-less, pole dancing techniques. It's the little things, the things that should be eliminated through basic observation and consideration and yet remain universal.

For example, people sitting on the outside of the 2x2 row seating when both seats are empty. And then, when that person is asked to move--a rarity, it seems--they simply swing their legs around to allow the new person some ten inches of maneuverable room through which to access the inside seat, only to be squashed in by Lazy McSelfish-Ass' freely swinging legs.

And then there's the blatant disregard for the Escalator Rule. Most of you immediately know what I'm talking about because you've likely seen an escalator in action. For the rest of you, the Rule works as follows: on two-person wide escalators, the left side of the escalator is reserved for people walking up or down. One may also walk on the right, assuming no one is occupying that space, but standing on the right is acceptable, so one may need to move around them. Once practiced, it proves remarkably simple.

And yet many never master it. See the group of teens who can't bear to be apart for more than a few seconds and so cluster into tight, inward facing packs for the length of the ride (one wonders how restroom visits work). Or the lone fighter of uniformity, leaning against the left handrail, like the American Hero his mother told him he was. Or the ill-advised, if merely unfortunate, soul who, having missed the elevator, brings luggage onto the escalator, inconveniencing everyone, including himself (extra points if they're on the Wheaton, Rosslyn or Dupont escalators).

I've been on subway systems in seven cities on two continents and the Escalator Rule works the same in all of them. Amazingly, it's the same rule that's used by malls, museums, hotels, government buildings, and other large, public and private structures that have escalators. And even if you've never personally experienced a ride on these automated miracles of sharp, interlocking metal teeth, it's easy enough to understand this rule just by watching. As you step on, simply look up/down and study the natives. If you follow their lead, you'll be in the right 99% of the time.

As with most societal niceties, most people have no problem following standard Let's Try Not To Kill Each Other Today procedures. The rules are only in place because a very few people can't or won't put the brakes on their Special Snowflake train for the few minutes it takes to get from one place to another with other human beings. And because those few simply cannot help themselves, the rules become overarching laws, governing us all to a degree that no one really wanted, but that we all asked for. This is basic John Locke Social Contract shit.

If you visit the District of Columbia, or any city with a public transport system (however faulty), please follow the procedures your fellow passengers are quietly demonstrating. They know what they're doing, have places they're trying to get to, and have done this before.

*I've seen this happen. And having been at the would-be pusher end of the engagement, I understand the urge. But it's a helpful reminder that there are just enough thoughtless people riding the Metro during rush hour that there are very few win-win scenarios.

Cut It Out, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh. Explanation please:

You've worn these things twice now. Stop it.

I think I speak for all Bears fans when I say that the best news I heard at the start of this season was that the Bears would no longer be wearing these monstrosities. If we can do it, so can you.

David Petraeus (Ret.), Reality TV Star

I feel like I'm supposed to care about the Petraeus thing. I tried, too. Nothing's clicking for me on this one.

As far as I can tell, there's no deep national security significance, at least not given that Petraeus has resigned and the biography's been written (unethical, maybe, but that's more on Broadwell than Petraeus) and that he's still available for any questions we might have. Sure, it could mean the guy's ego was so huge that he thought no one could take him down. But it's just as likely that the guy was humble enough to know that he needed to step back. All character hypotheticals are moot now that he's gone, anyway. At worst, this thing makes him the last in a line of 2000s-era War on Terror guys to to have the bear eat them, rather than the other way 'round. Probably not great for national morale, but what from the Bush II years is? I say junk the whole lot of it. Forward, etc.

And this is the CIA, for Christ's sake. When did morality become a standard for judging anyone over there? You don't have to be an adultery apologist to see the disconnect of priorities here. Drone warfare? Shit, what's that? Powerful guy consensually boning two separate women who aren't his wife? Raging media hard-on. Sure, it's slimy, but come on.

It doesn't matter how long ago graduation was, we're all stuck in high school. And where do semi-powerful, emotionally-stunted-at-high-school, semi-powerful adults best fit in? That's right: reality TV. I've seen several people comment that the entire embarassment would make for some ripping good melodrama. That should be a sad observation, but I say let it be done. At least there, it'll be relegated to a realm I don't have to pay attention to. Put them out there and let them play in the sandbox of their making, wallowing in the precise amount of dignity they've earned for themselves. And we'll watch them, chortling and groaning in equal measure, because TV's bottomless chum bucket has claimed Vanessa Redgrave respected, high level government officials.

Undecided Voters

Once or twice a year, SNL still manages to get it right.

This morning's Washington Post Express carried this AP article. You've probably heard about--if you don't remember from every other general election of your lifetime--the importance of undecideds to politicians. Undecideds get a lot of attention this time of year from media and politicians because they are incapable of making up their minds. Or are playing coy. Or are lying to us. Or are dumb. Occam's razor allows for any of these.

I explained last week that I get how non-political people can be turned off to what little they do see of the campaign. The lies and the spin are tough to sift through, even for people--like myself--who follow the horse-race day in, day out. And this year--more than most--seems custom-designed to turn stomachs. Not to mention that the decision shouldn't be taken lightly and some people don't have the time to sit down, etc. I get all that.

But.

Mitt Romney officially launched his campaign on June 2, 2011. That's one way to measure the chronology of the campaign. You could also pick the day Obama announced his re-election bid (April 4, 2011). Some might go with May 11, 2011, the day a bloated, self-serving troll threw his over-sized hat into the ring. A cynical observer might pick the end of the 2010 midterms. And though traditionally the conventions mark the start of the general election, it would be more accurate to say that the general began when Mittens locked up the necessary delegates on May 29th of this year. No matter how one marks the calendar, voters have already had between four and eighteen months to come to a general decision. And yet undecideds cannot or will not figure it out for themselves. They don't want to be rushed, or they want to wait for "all the facts."

First: how many other life decisions require twenty months of reflection? And how does such a person function in every day life? Do they stand in front of the break room vending machine for seven hours, muttering, "Snickers or Milky Way? Snickers... or Milky Way? I just... I need more information. I can't tell them apart."

Second: the facts, such as they are, are out there. You can hem and haw about the vagaries of campaign promises and the natural dishonesty of politicians. However, uncontrollable world events aside, there's nothing coming in the next seven weeks that we don't already know--in large part because of those intentionally vague campaigns that will squelch anything that might damage their chances of winning. Also, those uncontrollable world events are ever-present possibilities. If something earth-shattering happens on November 7th and we're suddenly queasy about our choice: tough shit (unless the electoral college balks, but one messy situation at a time).

By the way, a decision doesn't mean a commitment. If it comes out tomorrow that Obama has used his office to personally select interns for the annual slaughter so that he might bathe in the blood of virgins to keep him ever-young, he's lost my vote. Some will claim that I'm in the tank for Obama. Or that I'm that repelled by Romney. The point is that--aside from more interest (and more time) than the average voter--I don't have access to any more resources than any one else. If, like myself, you largely use the Internet for news, your sources are equally as good as--and equally as bad as--mine. And I've made my decision based upon that same information that you have access to. If that same information turns sour, I can decide to jump off the bandwagon. Because that's the way human judgment works: you operate on the information you have and reserve the right to adapt when and if that information changes. If Drudge unveils evidence of Obama Bathory, I'll reassess my support. And few reasonable people would think less of me for it.

I could let all of this go if the undecideds had no interest in voting. That's a legitimate choice in American politics; it's not a choice I agree with and I think that not voting as a protest vote is as milquetoast as a protest can be, but it is a person's right. No, the problem here is that these people believe that it's important that they vote, regardless. Check out some of the undecided voter in Oregon:

“There’s a lot of people who have their minds made up too far in advance.”

Yep, our bad. We're the idiots. All 93% of us.

This is the aggravating part: the belief in civics that they sanctimoniously parrot while also refusing to engage in citizenship. Again, this election, for all intents and purposes, has been running for over a year. If you've accidentally picked up a newspaper or half-watched any news programming in the last few months, you've seen something having to do with the campaign. At some point, as the information rolls in, most minds will tend to pick a preferred candidate, even unconsciously. Not the undecideds, though. No, no. They need more. You can practically hear the SNL sketch: "some of us are just a little bit harder to please."

And so they'll get more. The bases are shored up and the informed independents have largely chosen sides. For Romney to come from behind or for Obama to clinch this thing, they have to appeal to the low-information, disinterested undecideds. And then we'll all get to hear those people vacillate back and forth for the next six weeks. Because why pick a side when everyone will bend over backward to hear your opinion? Do you know how much effort some of us put into opinion-shaping with little to no results to show for it?

Maybe they are smarter than we are.

EDIT: I shortened the original title of this post. It seemed edgy and attention-grabbing at the time. Two years later, I'm just kind of embarrassed by it. If you liked the previous one better, thank you. But that's not who I want to be anymore.

In Brief: Pussy Riot

The upside here is that the media has to use the words "Pussy Riot" seriously and, when possible, with gravitas. Bring Brokaw in, he'll know what to do. 

The downside is a lot of other things that are more important than my juvenile glee in the face of grown-ups saying decidedly non-grown up things. But that's, of course, what Russia has wrought here: a non-grown up conviction of three members of a band with a non-grown up name over an offense that was actually grown up-neutral. 

This is one of those moments where I have to stop and give America credit for not being this shitty. Sure, if a musician says something unpopular, they'll have their albums burned and sponsorships lost until they offer a lazy, mumbled apology.  Even that's not necessary if you keep your offense firmly within the Fox News acceptability scale. Ted Nugent (a walking, drooling example of why we should be less sad when rock stars die young) made explicit, just-short-of-threatening remarks about murdering the sitting President and Secretary of State on separate occasions and experienced no real consequences, beyond a Secret Service investigation (which will tend to happen when you appear to threaten the Commander-in-Chief; commie fascists, amirite?). More recently, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine accused Obama of staging the recent shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin. What's happened to him? The Internet called him some names. And... that's been it.

Because even when something really stupid and borderline offensive happens (and offering a prayer for God to remove the chief executive would fall firmly within those parameters if it happened here), the government rarely gets its panties in a bunch. That's not necessarily because we the American people are so confident in our Constitutional institutions (the Tea Party, for example, has no faith in the founding fathers or their documents or any of the concepts that they profess to revere). It's because our institutions happen to be strong enough to take those kind of insubstantial punches. And just enough of us are aware of that fact that we don't feel the need to come down on a punk band for, well, being a punk band.

You'd think that a man with a judo background who can hunt big game would be at least as secure in himself.

Flowers for Mittens (UK edition)

What the hell is wrong with you, Mittens?  And where are your handlers?  It's one thing to write something stupid like this in your book just because you never had to win Britain (much as Cameron never has to win Utah).  It's entirely another to run over there and insult them and make a general ass of yourself because... why, again?  Are their trees not the right height?  Are their national hymns harder to sing?  And not even getting a country's name right, by the way, earns you your "worse than Palin" status.

But you couldn't stick to your guns on any of that: you had to flip-flop... again... and give under-stimulated commentators like me yet more ammunition.

This, Mittens.  This is why Obama has to "apologize" for America.  Because of morons like you.

"Grandpa, what did you do in the Goldeneye wars?"

"Well.  You had to learn about Goldeneye sooner or later, didn't you?  Your dad, he wouldn't tell you.  He only ever got the knock-offs, the ones that were almost there but never quite matched it.  But, then, what could?  No, what we had was special.  We didn't know it yet--we were just kids, no older than you.  But we'd lose whole hours, days, weekends of our young lives.  Lost in the grip of Goldeneye.

"I don't have a lot of specific memories of the wars--it's mostly a lot of little images: an unaware target running across my screen with nary a crate to hide behind.  Or the crisp, satisfying sound of reloading my KF7.  Sometimes I still see a pixelated explosion, setting off a thousand other, equally beautiful, explosions until the whole screen is nothing but yellow and orange pixels, killing us all before respawning us, back to square one. 

"Some of the memories, though...  They're with me even when I don't want 'em.  Especially when I don't want 'em.  I shout, 'Get out!  Get out of here!  I'm not in those Caves no more!'  But all I see is the winding tunnels of the Caves.  The big, open rooms of multiple levels coming out of nowhere, leaving you open from every conceivable angle and from others you didn't know were possible.  Those Caves had the kind of rock formations that don't appear in nature--neat, sloping ramps and horrifying, hexagonal columns.  Some people thought they were programmed by demons; I don't know much about demons or devils but... I think those people might be right.  And then there was the black.  The endless black, broken only for a second by... his face... his hand. 

"It was always so dark in them Caves.  So dark and so endless and so, so cold.  Like the Temple but... so much more circuitous.  No matter how dark it got in the Temple, an experienced player knew where he was, where he was going.  It wasn't the Complex, neither, which had all that light--all the subtle clues giving you some idea where you might be.  Give me the Facility anytime.  That was a clean layout.  Always knew where you were, where others might be.  And those doors, all those doors.  You could always hear them opening and shutting--there was an adrenaline boost for you, whether you wanted it or you didn't: when a door opened in earshot and it wasn't you who did it.  Some said, if you made it far enough through the Caves, you'd come out into a jungle--a jungle that traded endless black for endless green--but we never found it. 

"None of my crew ever liked going to the Caves much.  But, sometimes, when you set your destination for 'random,' well, that's the kinda place a man can end up.  That was a risk we all took.  Even little Rhodie--he always played as Boris, shouting "I AM INVINCIBLE" every time he notched a kill--he knew the risks, and I think a small part of him died every time we looked around and found ourselves in the Caves.  Little guy always wanted to go to the Stacks--said he liked the big open spaces: better for watching the explosions.  He was a remote mines kinda guy.  That was a point of contention between him and me.  See, I liked proximity mines.  You lay 'em and get the hell out of there.  Maybe set the buggers up near an ammo cache or, better, a respawn area.  Rhodie used to say that was cowardly--told me over and again 'that's gay!' back before we stopped using that as a pejorative.  'What's the difference,' I'd shout back, maybe a little more defensive than was needed.  'What's the difference when we're going License To Kill?'  Because that was how a man went to war, son: License To Kill.  When any second you'd be runnin' high, but the next you'd be on the receiving end of somebody's cheaply-found Klobb.  Where body armor meant nothing and every time you picked it up, you snorted a little; yeah, you pretended it was funny, but in that abbreviated breath there was more fear than bemusement--because you knew nothin'--nothin'--could save you.

"One time, totally punch drunk, somebody suggested we do Slappers Only on LTK.  'It'll be fun,' the bastard insisted.  It wasn't fun.  Dull, at first, maybe.  But when the suck set in, the war we experienced wasn't contained in the Stacks.  Not even the Temple could've held the contempt we started feeling for each other.  We had each lost a thousand lives in Goldeneye.  But that day, it took our innocence... our friendships.  I wish I... I wish I could tell Rhodie now that it didn't matter--that it never mattered.  Proximity, remote, who cares?  He wouldn't... I never got to... I don't know how many wars he had after that.  But I like to remember his last round--in the Stacks, where he was always happiest...

"I was almost out of the Caves.  I had to be: I had been running so long.  So long since I had last heard any gunfire, any explosions.  As though I was the only one left alive, and yet the round wouldn't end.  Stuck in my own little purgatory.  And that's when I saw him--the little Asian guy with the bowler hat, jumping out of the shadows.  We had a code, our crew: no one gets the little Asian guy.  But there he was, plain as day, and he was coming for me.  I tried shootin' him; used every last round in my PP7--the only gun I had left with ammunition, the only friend that hadn't let me down.  And I swear to this day: I got the son of a bitch.  I got him, sure as I ever got any man.  But them bullets just kept... flying right over his head.  By the time I understood what was happening, before I could even think to lower the gun, I fired my last and he was on me, hand stretched forward.  Slappers Only.  'That cocky little Asian man,' I thought to myself, just before the blood dripped down from the top of the screen--the wars' way of telling you 'You're Done.' 

"Anyway, I don't remember a lot, son.  But I do remember that I earned my Longest Innings medal.  And dammit to hell, I earned Most Deadly, too!  But no one remembers the awards.  What are they even for, anyway?  We couldn't figure out how we got some of them.  One of my crew--big fat guy, used to play as Trevelyan--he once got Most Honorable and Most Dishonorable in the same round.  The same round!  Explain that to me, God!

"But that's... that's not fair.  For God or for any man.  I'm not sure there is an explanation for the hold that game had on us.  The memories it carved.  The friendships it forged... and ended.  I don't know if your generation will ever know the likes of Goldeneye, boy.  But I hope you get your own.  And I hope, when you do, that your controllers are easier to hold than the ones they gave us."

How long until...

... Mittens starts campaigning against activist judges?  And how obscene an amount of money will he be able to raise to run ads about the evils of activist judges because those same judges decreed that he's allowed to do as much of that as he can?

... The Obamas are getting it on in the Lincoln bedroom?  Ain't no sex like just-changed-the-shape-of-nation's-moral-and-financial-priorities sex. 

... Republicans remember that the mandate was originally their idea?  And suffer a stroke trying to figure out how to campaign on that without riling up the colonial cos-players they've so eagerly grabbed their ankles for the past three years? 

... CNN acknowledges this?  You know, just to clear the air. 

... we find out how many uses of "fuck" will show up in Scalia's dissent?  Over/under is 6.5. 

A Quick, Stupid Thought

How well do you think a baldly cynical presidential candidate could do if they changed their name to "America?"  You know, the kind of person who thinks far enough in advance that he'd do it some time in his twenties (I went to school with such people--they exist).  Think of the slogans:

"America 2012."   

"Americans For America."

"Vote America!" (the brazen disregard for punctuation would probably generate enough Internet chatter to warrant a full media cycle of talk by pundits, who would then declare that America had just won the media cycle)

"Be pro-America." 

"Don't be anti-America." (seriously, how would the opposing candidate attack--or even present a simple opposing view--without opening him/herself up to accusations of being "anti-America?")

"Help Defend America." (when the scandals hit).

Even someone who did it just prior to entering the race (basically advertising the cynicism in big, neon lights) would surely benefit a little from the confusion in the voting booth when people see "America" on the ballot.  I'm not saying someone named "America" would have the election in the bag, but it's gotta strip off a few percentage points.

And given the escalation of cynical stunts the last few election cycles, I'm thinking this will be a logical step at some point.

Decision 2028: America (D) vs. America (R) 

Why Are You, Adam Sandler?

Posts have been a bit rare 'round here lately.  I've been working on a longer piece I hope to have up in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I'm going to recommend Steven Hyden's recent article at Grantland.com (a site I'm reluctantly coming around to liking) exploring Adam Sandler's long journey from the naive yet charming man-child we loved in Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison to the more aimless man-child we tolerated in Waterboy and Anger Management to the obscenely-wealthy-and-not-giving-a-shit man-child we wanted to retire in Grown-Ups, Jack and Jill, and, now, That's My Boy.  One might argue that he never really gave a shit.  As Hyden points out, it wasn't never so much that he said funny things--he just said them in a way that was kind of funny (compare to Will Ferrell, who, at the top of his game, usually managed/manages both).

And it's not as if Sandler's not aware or can't do better (Funny People provides proof enough against both).  He just has a good thing where he gets paid millions of dollars to play versions of himself in different careers in films that are filmed in his own mansion.  Guy's one step away from not even having to bathe and making bank for it.  I'm not going to blame a guy for grasping onto that.  But I can begrudge the ratio: there's nothing wrong with popping out an expensive turd once every few years in order to bankroll smaller projects that aren't putting food on the table.  Sandler seemed to be on this path at one point, but a quick glance through his filmography of the last decade shows that this has not been the case.  There was Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People, demonstrating that he has the ability and at least some of the interest to put some effort into his movies.  But on the vastly heavier side of the scale, we see the likes of 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard remake, Click, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, Grown Ups (which is apparently getting a sequel?), Just Go With It, That's My Boy, and writing and producing credits on Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star and I don't care if Sandler thinks it's fair to include it--he lost the high moral ground when he attached his name to that one. 


All of which leads me back to my original question: Why are you, Adam Sandler?  And why do you insist on making us sad?