Moons Over My Hammy
I can't believe I made that the title. I just had to leave it.
So this Paul Hamm guy won a Gold All-Around medal in Gymnastics in Athens. Sweet. Some people probably even watched who weren't women looking at his ass (or dudes looking at his ass).
And after the media coverage swapped over to Table Tennis (man those Chinese are quick) we all hear that there was a scoring error, and one of Hamm's competitors, Yang Tae-young, was given an incorrect score that, if corrected, would have made him the winner of the all-around gold.
Many, including the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG), asked Hamm to give his gold to the Korean. You know, give it to the guy who really earned it.
But Hamm refused, with all the grace and dignity of a junior-high-schooler who comes across a money clip on the ground and screams "Finders keepers!" to the owner.
So I had this great little rant written, and I made a bunch of reasonably funny cracks at him, when I read that yes, Tae-young's judges incorrectly omitted a tenth of a point at the beginning of his routine, but he was also not penalized two-tenths for his four different holds in his routine (maximum of three).
As it happens, Hamm actually did win the gold. This only gets him some credit back, though, cause it doesn't change the fact that he was going to be a dick and refuse to give his medal back the entire time, only finding out later that Tae-young should have been penalized for his four holds. He didn't take the chance to be a good guy, and didn't think hey, if that had been me, I sure would want the gold I earned.
He would have been an international hero, spirit of sportsmanship and all; then he would have gotten his gold back anyway when they discovered Tae-young's other deductions.
So now it will always be footnoted that his medal was disputed. And even though that will probably be forgotten eventually, at least he doesn't have his own Wheaties box.
But I can't go through with all the cracks I'd planned at Hamm's expense, because my writing is so awesome that it'd just be too cruel. Instead, I'll just post this photo of Hamm in a tutu:
And I'll turn the rest of this into an article berating people who form their opinions without searching out all the facts first.
You're turkeys.
posted by Scotty 2-shots at 7:26 AM
2 comments
Marie Callender, defender of equality
There are some opportunities that you can miss and feel fine about it.
I was on the phone with my buddy back home, and he'd just gotten back from the store, stocking up on Marie Callender's Pot Pies. Two for five bucks!
I had just been to the store. I considered checking out the pot pies, but I didn't. I could have gotten them on sale. I can't go back now; they're not on sale any more.
I didn't feel too bad about it until later.
A few months ago, I sat in the Jury Selection room next to Anthony, an inner-city 19-year-old who's dad had been in jail, you know, not an easy life. All I wanted was to read my Orson Scott Card, but he couldn't stop talking, and eventually got around to his absolute hatred of wife-beaters. Couldn't stand it when guys beat up on their wives, their girlfriends. His dad beat up on his mom, you see.
Hey, that's pretty admirable. He's learning from his dad's actions rather than just learning to emulate them.
Forty-five minutes later he told me about this girlfriend that cheated on him, so after class one day he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of school.
I thought you hated guys that beat up on girls?
His reply was, "Hey, I never laid a hand on her."
He went on to describe how he'd cut the corners close so she'd bang into doorframes as he was dragging her to the parking lot. He made a big deal out of demonstrating how he'd swing her around and shout "BAMM!" to illustrate it to me.
Part of his previous episode of I Hate Wife Beaters included a skit where he saw some kid in the parking lot smacking a girl, so Anthony stormed up and pushed that guy around until he left her alone.
But what if he never laid a hand on her, Anthony? If he was wailing on her with a two-by-four, it would have been okay? If he had been shoving her through a car window, would you have run up and high-fived him? Way to show that girl what she's got coming to her! Just don't let your fingers touch her face, man. That's where the crime is.
I made some muttering comment along the lines of "Aww, that's no good, man," but he just kept saying "I never laid a hand on her." I didn't really press it. I didn't call him out on it.
I never asked him all the things I should have, like how it's different if you hit her with your fist or a wall. Or if, as you're dragging her by the hair into doors, she's thinking to herself, "Thank God he's not beating me." But Anthony never thought to consider if he'd be just as pissed if somebody slugged him in the jaw or if they threw a TV playing CHiPs reruns on his head.
The hypocrisy was raining down in little flakes. He paid allegiance to that phrase, "I never laid a hand on her," and was even a little proud as he said it. Proud to not be following in his father's footsteps, I suppose. He paid such allegiance to the literal words he'd completely ignored their meaning.
It was so bad that as I think about it now, he could have been making it all up just to see what reaction he'd get out of me. I hope that's what it was. That would be a less galling explanation than the idea that he couldn't see his own contradictions. By his gesticulating enthusiasm and the absolute glee in his eye, I could tell it never occurred to him that somebody would disagree with him.
I'll never get the chance to find that guy again and have it out with him. The sale's over. I could have at least let him know that I'm one person who thinks he's full of crap, and all the suffering his mom went through is all wasted. The only thing he learned from it is how to twist good logic to make excuses for himself. Having just written that, I wonder how big a problem it is with youth today. Hell, with everybody.
I feel just as bad for not calling him out as he should for slapping up some girl. Next time somebody does something like that in front of me, I'm gonna be all in their face, even if it gets me socked in the jaw. I owe it to that girl Anthony knocked around.
When you see those pot pies on sale, stock up. Pot pies are the fuel of the righteous.
posted by Scotty 2-shots at 1:44 PM
1 comments
the Get Out of Bigotry Free Card
"Present company excepted."
That's the phrase people throw out when they make some blanket generalization about a group of people and then realize that a member of that group is standing right next to them.
"Man, I had some Puerto Ricans on my last crew, and damn... Puerto Ricans are lazy. Present company excepted, of course."
Or in other words, "...but not you, because I've met you and found that you don't adhere to those stereotypes I just outlined."
Way to go. Did it ever occur to you that every other Puerto Rican might be exactly the same way if you met and got to know them? Can you not realize that on top of being a bigoted ham, you're also contradicting yourself?
"Puerto Ricans are lazy... except for that one I met who's not lazy."
They just argued themselves out of their biased bunk, but they don't even know it. It can't be both; either they're all lazy, or every one of them is different. I guess that concept is just too huge to grasp.
Happens all the time when somebody forms an opinion based on insufficient information. How could you possibly know enough to judge an entire nation's worth of guys based on your initial impression of four? Doesn't occur to them.
But I know why it doesn't. It's simpler to just lump them all under one "lazy" group heading and be done with it. It's less work and you don't have to consider the possibility that you're flawed.
The only thing more degrading than watching someone say "present company excepted" is when the person who's just been insulted hears it and decides not to be pissed. So long as the jackass belts out their little catch phrase, they're not really biased, right? I feel dirty just when I hear that in conversation. And knowing that someone who should be fighting mad has just fallen for it is worse.
Every time somebody in a conversation with me or around me uses that phrase, I find myself utterly enraged. Not because they're trumpeting their bias, because there will always be biased people. You accept their presence like you accept hurricanes and forest fires.
No, I'm enraged because they think so long as they lean on that particular phrase, they're free of any moral qualms they might have.
It's the cheap way out, but I guess it's a hell of a lot easier than realizing they're a bigot.
posted by Scotty 2-shots at 2:15 AM
0 comments
No ads, no banners, no sense
I was recently led to The Center for an Informed America, authored and maintained by
The site has many opinion pieces; conspiratorial deviousnessness everywhere. Some real gems.
The first thing you see on his home page:
Congratulations, Dave. You've demonstrated that you posses such superior pattern-recognition skills that you can draw a parallel between three images of men in uniform.
The similarities there are obvious now that those two images have been directly compared for me. How could I have missed it before? No humans could line up that straight without the help of Satan. And there's no need for such riot gear in the LAPD unless they have Naziesque world-domination plans.
Perhaps what he's saying is that people standing line abreast have evil intentions:
collegiate volleyball players = Nazis
Or people wearing helmets?
West Virginia spelunkers = Nazis
No, it's people both wearing helmets and standing in a line.
Miami high school football players = Nazis
We should all of us consider ourselves fortunate, I think, that Dave McGowan is fighting on the side of truth and liberty. After all, imagine if someone with those supreme powers of image-association were to throw their hat in on the side of evil! Those of us who love freedom could never stand against such a torrent of juxtaposed pictures!
I was inspired by the insight.
These two images were chillingly similar:
I couldn't get over the fact that both Hitler and Bush are congratulating their adoring little puppy's best efforts, posed in the same fashion with flags behind them. No coincidence. Bush even seems to know that we're on to him.
Keeping a political mindset, a recent photo of John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention sent me instantly to mostly-funny Steve Oedekerk:
The angle of the photograph and similar facial expressions can only mean there's a connection there. Allies in the fight against liberty? Brain-programmed by the same agency? Could Steve O. be an earlier version of Kerry? You decide.
Finally, uber-conservative Michael Savage:
There's definitely shared DNA there.
I don't know what Cringer has to do with politics, but damned if I'm not gonna find out! Maybe it's not Cringer, it's Battle-Cat...
I think I've made great headway with my image-association technique.
What I ridicule isn't Davey-Dave's dissent against the Government. We certainly need it; this country is built on the concept that dissent is necessary for a healthy society.
What I ridicule is his usage of the cheapest, most effortless kidney-shots. That he could hope anyone would be convinced to alter their own beliefs based on side-by-side photos of the LAPD and the SS ("Good God! They're both wearing black! I'm sold!") and secret oh-who-could-it-be stories ("man... this all sounds tragically familiar... but how?") is really an insult to everybody who reads his writing. Or the idea that these juxtaposed images somehow act as proof of anything.
This aside from the "Any Questions?" line of ads; you remember, the ones that stopped holding your attention instantly in the 80s. "Oh, I get it, cause I shouldn't have any questions, cause this should answer them all! I feel as though I've accomplished something!"
The Davester doesn't try to convince anybody by using real evidence or specific arguments. No, Daveykins intentionally leaves specifics out of his articles. Vast shantytowns of undescriptive phrases such as "these men", "somewhere in America" and "it can be safely concluded" have struck up permanent residence in his writing.
Reading this website made my eyes bleed.
I may not be ready to accept the enlightened truth, but I have to admit, I envy his job. He makes a living playing a giant game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. All he has to do is pick a few prominent officials, objects, programs or other world events and find any three- to six-stage connection between them and [insert_devious_individual]. The more lengthy and convoluted the connection, the more it proves how good they are at covering their tracks.
You can make anybody look like anybody else if you try hard enough. Keep digging, Davey-pooh; you've been around your writing for so long you no longer whiff the stench.
Allow me to suggest an update for your opening motto: "No ads, no banners, no bullshit, no traffic".
posted by Scotty 2-shots at 2:20 AM
1 comments
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