Category: Culture

I’m Never Going To Read “Go Set A Watchman”

atticusI’m never going to read Go Set A Watchman.  I don’t have an intellectual argument to justify why — I’m just not going to do it.  I grew up with To Kill A Mockingbird, and I like Scout and Atticus the way they are.  So I intend to keep them that way.  Actually, there’s going to be enough written about the book that, when it comes up in conversation, I’m just going to lie.  I’ve done it for years about Moby’s Dick, so it’s no big deal.  (Yeah! Right!  Like you’ve never done that?)

You see, my fictional friends are dear to me.  I’ve known most of them for years.  We’ve shared a lot of life together, and we know each other well.  They’ve always been there.  We’ve endured mindless jobs, troubled nights, one endlessly miserable childhood vacation, a couple of failed love affairs and tons of other experiences.  We’ve spent hot summer days, rainy nights, hangovers, illnesses and any number of long, chilly, Sunday afternoons together.  We like each other’s company — together alone — and I’ve slept with them on more than one occasion.  So if I’m not willing to lie for these people, I’m not a very good friend, am I?

At the end of the day, Harper Lee might be a wonderful person, and she has every right to do whatever she wants with the characters she created.  But I don’t know her; we’ve never met.  I know the Finch family, I know Boo, I know Tom and a lot of other people in Maycomb County.  We met when I was a teenager in Miss Owen’s English class, and they had a bigger influence on me than most of the flesh-and-blood people I knew at the time.  Since then, we’ve visited on occasion, and each time they’ve told me a little bit more about themselves, always expanding their story into my accumulating experience.  (All my fictional friends respected my youth that way.)  These days, we’re comfortable, but I know they still have subtleties they haven’t told me about — yet.

So I plan to visit again, now that Atticus is back in the news.  Sometime in the autumn, when the leaves fall and it’s one-quilt cold, I’m going back to Maycomb County and see how everybody’s doing.  It will be a good visit, with coffee and (probably) Oreos, and they will tempt me to read Go Set A Watchman, but I’m not going to do it — my old friends are just too precious to me.

How To Play “Cultural Appropriation”

family-gameThese days, Cultural Appropriation is trending everywhere. You can read about it here, but I’ve discovered an interesting fact: “Cultural Appropriation” isn’t real.  It’s a game invented by middleclass, university undergrads with time on their hands.  It’s quite simple and very similar to the “You’re a Racist” game; however, the scoring is slightly different.  A player must first ambush some unsuspecting white guy — doing just about anything beyond eating Kraft Dinner — and accuse him of Cultural Appropriation.  While the white guy is still wondering WTF, the player must then try and light up the Internet by generating enough traffic to attract the attention of the mainstream media.  There is no limit to the amount of venom or indignation the player can use.  Name calling is allowed, and as in the “White Privilege” game, there are no penalty points for bullshit.  Scoring is simple: more hits equal a higher score and Facebook “likes” don’t count. (Did they ever??)  There are bonus points if  the white guy apologizes and/or eventually just gives up trying to explain.  Also, all bonus points are doubled if the unsuspecting white guy is associated with a brand name corporation.  Points continue to accumulate through the 48 hour news cycle but stop immediately when the story appears on Huffington Post.  The player wins when the white guy’s activity or event is cancelled; however, NO points are awarded if the player doesn’t immediately bitch about the lack of cultural diversity in Western society.  In that scenario, the game resets itself and the player must start again.

Like all holier-than-thou games — including “Sexist, Sexist, I Found a Sexist” and “Homophobes are Everywhere” — ” Cultural Appropriation” is derived from the classic “Stereotyping White People” game which has been a sophomore sport since the mid 60s.  And although we’ll probably never see the great college tournaments of the 80s and 90s again, we can all still enjoy hours of liberal guilt just playing these games for fun with our friends.  Good luck, and good gaming!

4th Of July: Trivia and More

independenceTomorrow is the 4th of July, Independence Day in America.  Here are a few things you might not know about the Land of Milk and Money.

There are more New Yorker Magazine subscribers outside the city of New York than in it, and a lot of them are from that wannabe poser, L.A.

There are 2.2 million farms in America.  However, at its peak of popularity, over 26 million Americans played Zynga’s Farmville every day.  Think about it!  America is so OMG rich that tons more people can play at being farmers than actually have to work on farms.

From space, the brightest thing on Earth is Las Vegas, Nevada which is also the most watched place on Earth with more CCTV cameras per capita than any other city — including Moscow, London and Beijing.

Atheists in America are in big trouble.  According to the legal basis of their system, the Declaration of Independence, Americans are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” notably “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Therefore, strictly speaking, if you don’t believe in God, those legal rights do not exist.

Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are the same guy — and he might be a Canadian!

miley

If all the Kardashian sisters were laid end to end on YouTube, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

The larger seller of retail women’s clothing in America is Mattel.  Man, that Barbie’s got it all!

America is very oddly shaped.  Reno, Nevada is actually further west than Los Angeles, California; Detroit, Michigan is north of Windsor, Ontario, Canada and Buffalo, New York is further east than Fort Lauderdale, Florida which is on the Atlantic Ocean.

And finally, three trivia questions guaranteed to win you drinks at the 4th of July Barbecue.  As always, the honor system applies — no Google.  I’ll give you the answers tomorrow on a special Independence Day post.  Good Luck!

1 — How many states are there in the United States of America?  (Hint: it isn’t 50)

2 — How many presidents were born in Kentucky?

3 — Legally, the president of the United States must be born in the United States.  However, there is no legal requirement that he (or she) must live, die or be buried there.  So, how many ex-presidents (note the plural) are not buried in the United States?  And which ones are they?