Shit That Pissed Me Off – 2/7
Coke Super Bowl Ad Creates Unsurprising Freak Out
The ad was supposed to be patriotic. It started with “America the Beautiful” in English and then transitioned to the song being sung in other languages.
Now the concept (I think) was to show how people from other countries immigrate (legally) to America to pursue a dream of freedom and blah blah blah America is awesome. Fortunately, the internet is filled with people who wanted to prove to Coke that America is not, in fact awesome.
They objected to the whole idea that an American song could be sung in any language other than American! How dare Coke suggest such a thing?
Is the word “Coke” even English?
They also freaked out about the fact that the commercial featured an openly gay couple prominently displayed in a song written by a lesbian.
The saddest commentary to me is the fact that when we watched the commercial at our Super Bowl party, we predicted the response. And no, that doesn’t make us psychic. Predicting stupidity requires no special skills.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 9/27
Popular Science Shuts off Their Comments
Hey, I don’t really care if anybody comments on a Popular Science article ever again. Comment threads on the internet are typically the realm of madness.
Which is precisely the point. Popular Science shut off comments on their science articles because people are more likely to believe the comments than they are to believe the article.
Yeah. That’s right. People read an article with citations and evidence and they are less likely to believe that than a one paragraph rebuttal that is basically nothing more than someone saying “oh yeah? I know you but what am I?”
Everyone KNOWS that you can’t trust results from experiments that use beakers! Some guy said so on the internet!
We benefit from scientific research every day of our lives but somehow, in spite of everything science does for us, we are more inclined to believe FrankNFurther2098 than someone who is publishing a researched and peer reviewed article. The practical result is that Popular Science is turning off their comments so people will pay attention to the science and not the bullshit.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/6
DC Comics Won’t let Batwoman get Married
It seems odd that DC would object to the marriage of Batwoman on the grounds that she is getting married to a girl. Honestly, it is probably more likely that they don’t want Batwoman to get married because it limits the story line and we’d rather have superheroes be miserable. They can’t be miserable if they are happily married.
Still, when you have a high-profile openly lesbian character who can get married (seeing as she proposed to her girlfriend and everything), why wouldn’t you go ahead with it? Especially given popular opinion on such matters?
Is it likely that there is a large contingent of homophobes currently reading Batwoman? I mean, she’s also Jewish so Neo-Nazis clearly would want nothing to do with her.
DC is pretty quiet about the whole thing but it appears their decision to stop the wedding was part of the reason the current writing team has decided to leave the comic.
Apparently, lesbian kisses are fine. Just so long as they don’t lead to lesbian weddings.
Reading the article, I’m actually more concerned at the level of creative control DC has been exercising over the title. They don’t seem to trust their writers all that much.
I think they should have trusted their writers about letting Batwoman get married, though. Something tells me that issue would have sold a lot of copies.
Words can hurt, but actions hurt more
Dear Matt Birk:
Most of my friends don’t know it, but I’m a football fan. I have followed the Vikings for my entire life and when you were our center, I proudly wore your jersey when I attended games. When you left Minnesota for Baltimore, I understood your decision completely. That is the nature of the game. Your favorite players move on. I may not be a fan of the Baltimore Ravens but I can’t deny I would love to see you win a Super Bowl.
I was saddened, therefore, to read your Op-Ed piece in the Star Tribune supporting the amendment to ban gay marriage in the State of Minnesota.
I wasn’t surprised to learn that you are against gay marriage. I fully expect that most of the athletes in the National Football League share your opinion on the subject. Players like Chris Kluwe, who speak out in support of marriage equality, are relatively rare.
What I should have said
You know, Minnesotans for Marriage were out at the State Fair today. We all know that I don’t have a lot of respect for them and I suppose I should have gone up to them and said something. They all wore bright green T-shirts and they were very cherrfully chatting up the small contingent of people who came to their booth while dozens of folks with orange “Vote NO” fans streamed past. I should have gone up and talked to them. I should have told them that I feel their position is untenable and if they win in November, they have committed what I would consider to be a wholly evil act.
What’s the point, though? If you are so convinced that marriage equity is a horrible thing, I’m not going to say anything that will change your mind. If I come up and ask some sort of “gotcha” question, they will just smile and answer me with the same idiotic excuses they have been using to justify their beliefs for the last several months. The net result will be that I wasted fifteen minutes in which I could have been eating a Pronto Pup.
If I had walked up to them, though, here are some questions I might have asked:
When is a Personal Opinion a Business Practice?
Yesterday evening, my friend Cargill decided to poke the bear. In response to the internet vitriol over Chick-Fil-A, he tweeted the following:
Boycotting a business over their business practices is the democratic free market in action. Doing so over their personal opinions is not.
By boycotting a business over personal opinions, you are saying it is okay to threaten someone’s livelihood if they don’t think like you.
Let’s start by pointing out that Cargill isn’t a dick. Yes, he’s a Republican and I’m a left-of-Democrat liberal but he and I actually agree on most social political matters and even some economic ones. I don’t fully agree with him here, although I do see what he is saying and understand the point he’s trying to make.
He’s a good guy and he argues fairly. I’m not trying to take him down. He got me to think and that is a good thing. He’s very good at it.
But this isn’t an argument that could be fairly explored over Twitter.
Grail Diary 