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But on the other hand who gives a shit?

13

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  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    Officially seen everything. Country Teasers in a Subway commercial. http://www.adweek.com/agencies/subways-new-bold-rebranding-campaign-promises-a-different-taste-for-everyone/

    Granted, it's not an original song and bastardized covers are a staple of advertising... still, yikes.

    At the end of the day...maybe he can pay his rent for a month. It's not as if Country Teasers is going to be tainted by it.
  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    I always loved that Alexander Cockburn wrote about Hitchens when he died:

    "I guess the lowest of a number of low points was when he went to the White House to give a cheerleading speech on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I think he knew long, long before that this is where he would end up, as a right-wing codger. He used to go on, back in the Eighties, about sodden old wrecks like John Braine, who’d ended up more or less where Hitchens got to, trumpeting away about “Islamo-fascism” like a Cheltenham colonel in some ancient Punch cartoon. I used to warn my friends at New Left Review and Verso in the early 90s who were happy to make money off Hitchens’ books on Mother Teresa and the like that they should watch out, but they didn’t and then kept asking ten years later, What happened?

    Anyway, between the two of them, my sympathies were always with Mother Teresa. If you were sitting in rags in a gutter in Bombay, who would be more likely to give you a bowl of soup? You’d get one from Mother Teresa. Hitchens was always tight with beggars, just like the snotty Fabians who used to deprecate charity."
  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    The gun debate is something I have no interest in engaging in (though I have to say that have begun to give up on just about everything). Neither side of the debate has been saying anything constructive for around a decade. The pointless exchange that occurs in the wake of each horrible incident is cheap and insincere and only adds only further indignity.

    Something so terrible should be more than frustrating.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    I think there is no longer a gun debate in the US: the pro-gun side won the debate December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    And Matt, the fact that I paraphrased Hitchens doesn't mean I agree with all he has said and done.

    You know how much I dislike religion and religious nutters. To me at least, the fact that they sometimes do good is kinda irrelevant: good things are often done for bad reasons.
  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    "good things are often done for bad reasons"

    Like obnoxious atheists endlessly railing against religion because it makes them feel smart?
  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    To clarify, again, my position on religion: I've been anti-religious since I was a kid, namely because it was the Catholic kid next door to me who tormented me for my entire upbringing (right into high school, actually). He and his siblings were taken to Church multiple times a week and it made none of them (or his parents, for that matter) good people. I knew that then when he almost beat me unconscious on multiple occasions. That prick is about 90% of why I am so socially retarded/prone to anxiety attacks/etc. today.

    But even before I realized how much his savagery damaged me socially it occurred to me that religion didn't magically make you a better person just by participation. I remember attacking his (parents) faith a few times when I was like seven or eight when he was being mean to me. I remember one time, very vividly, mocking Bible stories to his face just to get under his skin. I was no fighter. I had only words.

    And I went through my late high school/college phase of religion bashing and mockery of anyone who had faith. I have stacks of snotty, juvenile cartoons that I drew in class mocking the religions I had to study in Liberal Arts.

    I still hate religion today. Don't like it at all. If it comes up I have a hard time not falling into the muscle memory of those days and ranting about how absurd and damaging religion can be. And yet, I grew exhausted of my fellow smug liberal atheists a good decade ago. I simply cannot deal with 18-80 year-olds who believe that not believing in religion or being critical of the Church makes them some sort of megagenius. Yeah, religion is silly. Fucking grow up.

    The ones who go on about it the most seem like genuinely terrible people (like Hitchens, Maher, etc.) who never grow beyond that snotty high school contrarian phase. This has significant appeal to every 16 year old dickbag who thinks he is smarter than anyone else at school. This is one of the ways in which young white males are being dragged into the edgelord/alt-right/anti-SJW sphere. It's the first stepping stone to the new world of contrarianism that is online trolling. As society has grown more liberal, attacking religion lost some of its edginess. Attacking other sacred cows like feminism and social justice began to hold greater appeal to these insufferable dickheads. As luck would have it, their contrarian heroes were already ahead of them.

    I do honestly believe that the personality cult that sprung up around this New Atheist clergy comprised a root in the base of the alt-right movement. That base has slowly shifted over time to increasingly embrace "white anglo-American Christian tradition" (not at all surprising given that their other battle cry was a love for American liberalism which depended on contrasting with outgroups like Muslims), and the atheist branch is receding, replaced by clowns like Jordan Peterson who are desperately avoiding having to alienate either strain of the alt-right.

    I am a gradualist, I suppose. I don't believe that the cause of atheism is helped by snidely attacking and mocking Christians. It absolutely must be kept of the secular sphere, but there are more constructive ways of going about it than endlessly blasting faith for its inherent absurdities. If the debate is on the merits of religion have at it, but often debates about religion dominating public or government places can be done without attacking religion or religious people themselves. I feel that too many atheists give in to that muscle memory and go right back to bashing religion, rather than simply saying that religion has ex. no place in schools.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    Like obnoxious atheists endlessly railing against religion because it makes them feel smart?

    Nah, see, that's a bad thing done for a good reason. Bada bing, bada boom!

    Damn it, Matt, when I bitch about the pope on crappity, I'm not being a dick to catholics, I mean, as far as I can tell, we're all heathens here!

    Basically, my position on the subject of religion is pretty fucking simple... Is what the religious say about the nature of the universe true? Well, I'm quite certain it isn't.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    Funny thing is, my atheism is a relatively unimportant part of my life. It's certainly not the first thing I think about when I have to present myself. "Hi, I'm Dan and I'm an atheist." Meh. The only time I ever said that was when I had missionaries of one kind or another at my door.

    Nevertheless, I am glad that I live in a time and place where I'm free to ridicule religion if I want to. And say what you will about the so-called New Atheists, I'm happy that they came forth and did so. That being said, that was more than a decade ago, and I haven't paid much attention to that since then. Maybe if I lived in the US, I would give more of a shit.
  • Jurf_WurburJurf_Wurbur Posts: 5,475
    As with so many things, dickhead white dudes ruined new Atheism. It started out as people pointedly and hilarious calling out religious bullshit with common sense and science. While not a great long term plan, it was terrific as a shot across the bow and had its merits, for sure. Problem is, the movement is now largely dominated by know-it-all white dudes who delight in making people miserable, and seem to have extra time to say awful shit about women, Muslims, etc.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    By the way, Matt, although I am sure that there are atheists who happen to be wingnuts, none of the so-called four horsemen (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett) are (or were) supporters of the far-right.

    But since their criticism of religion could be used to bash muslims, many of the douches in the far-right adopted some of their rhetoric. Extremists are always in need of a veneer of legitimacy.

    And, as you must know, there are plenty of religious believers both on the left and on the moderate right... And they never waste time connecting atheism, new or old, to anything they don't like, eh?
  • captqitncaptqitn Posts: 3,624
    Since y'all won't be in church, what are y'all going to be doing this weekend?
  • captqitncaptqitn Posts: 3,624
    I'm taking S____ to dinner tonight, then practicing music tomorrow, then Black Panther on Sunday with the doooodz.

    Then I guess I have to buy mattresses on Monday?
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    There's a new Aardman Animations movie. Maybe we'll go watch that this sunday.
  • Jurf_WurburJurf_Wurbur Posts: 5,475
    Eric, have you considered buying a mattress online? We bought ours from Tuft & Needle after some friends recommended it. A queen is $575 with free shipping. They let you sleep on it for 100 nights and if you don't like it, they have you donate it to charity then they give you your money back. We love ours. It's a fancy foam one and I don't think I could go back.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    Oh, I forgot: next sunday will be the third anniversary of our moving to our house. We usually order some pizza and invite the in-laws on that day. Plus, my friend Fred is coming for brunch. Yeah, I do brunch sometimes, what of it?
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    Officially seen everything. Country Teasers in a Subway commercial. http://www.adweek.com/agencies/subways-new-bold-rebranding-campaign-promises-a-different-taste-for-everyone/

    Granted, it's not an original song and bastardized covers are a staple of advertising... still, yikes.

    At the end of the day...maybe he can pay his rent for a month. It's not as if Country Teasers is going to be tainted by it.
    I read somewhere that Martin Luther KIng's speeches are being used to sell trucks. O tempora, o mores...
  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    Finally got around to watching the adaptation of My Friend Dahmer. I am always skeptical of adaptations of works to other formats, so I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.

    I'm not sure if it would play better to those who haven't read the graphic novel or those who have. I've read it so many times that I couldn't help but find slight alterations somewhat jarring. The film itself is not a masterpiece of cinematic architecture (I could see people finding it either slow) but it works. The performances make it work.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    James Joyce reading his work (1924/1929)

    A bit of Ulysses and another from Finnegan's Wake. I dunno, hearing him speak kinda chokes me up a bit.
  • TrippTripp Posts: 676
    Black Panther is pretty darn good. Some of the FX are actually slightly sub-par and a couple of really outdated references (though they were funny). And the ending is another good suit vs bad suit fight. Those minor nitpicks aside though it's fun, funny, exciting, and feels like a world you haven't really ever seen before. And it's a Marvel movie with something to say for a change.
    I think all the Marvel movies are kind of the same. They're all pretty good and they're all always fun to rewatch but they're not necessarily 'good films'. This one is really no different but yeah, cool that there's finally some proper representation for black folks in the super-hero genre.
  • Jurf_WurburJurf_Wurbur Posts: 5,475
    We watched Loving Vincent. Its story is a quick and not overly earth-shattering dramatization of the mild controversy about Van Gogh's death, done as a kind of Citizen Kane interviews after the death mystery. (Short version: maybe he shot himself or maybe, during a period of time he was hitting rock bottom, he was shot by someone else when he already wanted to die and covered for them.)

    BUT... if you've heard of this movie before, it was because it's an "oil-painted" movie and it is really something neat to see. I recommend checking it out on Blu-Ray if you can so you can see the Making Of featurette, which was nearly as fascinating as the movie.
  • matthewmatthew Posts: 419
    This dude is in some history podcast Facebook groups I follow. Nice fella. He's sorta all over the place right now because of this letter he wrote: http://time.com/5167365/i-was-almost-a-school-shooter-man-pens-heartfelt-letter-about-mental-health-and-guns/
  • captqitncaptqitn Posts: 3,624
    a couple of really outdated references
    The "what are those?" line made my kids visibly cringe.
  • Jurf_WurburJurf_Wurbur Posts: 5,475
    The new Car Seat Headrest is really, really good.
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    edited February 2018
    “I think putting them on television after a mass murder at their school is not caring about them. It is using them.” says one Erick Erickson, conservative commentator and purveyor of nauseatingly right-wing bullshit.

    Won't somebody please think of the children!
  • LefunesteLefuneste Posts: 7,989
    But he's only slight less disgusting than the shitheads going 'round saying "how that gun massacre was a big ol' government phony and them kids are just a bunch of "crisis actors"!
  • captqitncaptqitn Posts: 3,624
    The Russian bots love that one. It gets people super riled up on both sides.
  • captqitncaptqitn Posts: 3,624
    I should be wiser than to hope, but it is starting to feel like we might get some very basic shit this time around. Bump stock ban and 21 yo age limit on assault rifles, maybe.
  • Jurf_WurburJurf_Wurbur Posts: 5,475
    I totally proposed this exact scam on Crappity maybe 3 years ago.

    https://www.avclub.com/it-sure-looks-like-bulgarian-scammers-used-fake-spotify-1823231417
  • captqitncaptqitn Posts: 3,624
    why didn't we listen to you?
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