Category: Culture

What A Week!

statueWow!  For a regular, low sun, mid winter, stay-at-home-and-eat-soup week, a lot of stuff happened in the world.

It turns out Vladimir Putin, the guy who does mean bastard even in his sleep, was accused of accumulating (“stealing” is such a hard word) tons of money — billions, apparently.  Think about it!  “Russian Oligarchy” has been a cliché for ruthless corruption ever since Boris Yeltsin discovered Smirnoff, and this is news?  I don’t think so!  If it was reported Putin was actually poor and was doing all his various vicious dictator stuff for free — that would be news.

Barbie now has three new sizes: curvy, petite and tall.  Excellent marketing ploy by Mattel. Now little girls will be able to understand the total frustration of not being able to buy any cool clothes — that actually fit — long before they have to face that for real, as adults.

The world has gotten just a little grumpier.  Facebook decided that we don’t have to automatically “Like” everything we set our eyes on, anymore.  Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg thinks his customers are now mature enough to handle a few other emotions.  They are (or will be) Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry.  When journalists asked when these new emotions will be available (as in, “Are we there, yet?”)  Zuckerberg answered, “Preettty soooon!”

And finally:

When it comes to WTF moments, nothing beats the Italian government covering up nude statues because the Iranian leader, Hassan Rouhani, showed up in Rome for a visit.  It seems Iranian politicos don’t like what goes on under our clothes, so the Italians chose to accommodate them.  It’s like saying, “Yeah, we had this thing called the Renaissance, but if it bothers you, we’ll just shut up about it.”  No big deal, really.  After all, the Iranians have promised they don’t want to nuke us anymore, and besides, the last time Europe took a Moslem threat seriously was the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.  The thing that blows me away, though, is there was no media outcry, no blogosphere explosion, no #ain’titawful on Twitter and not one arts organization — from the Ural Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean — got up on its hind legs and said, “Hold it!  That’s the foundation of Western culture you’re messing with.”  So much for artistic integrity!

What a week!  I’m sure glad tomorrow’s Saturday.

Oscar is a Grouch (2016)

hollywoodOnly an idiot would get involved in Hollywood’s current Oscar controversy, and my mom didn’t raise any dummies.  It’s been my experience that when a bunch of millionaires are lining up to do battle, we common folk better head for the exits.  However, when entertainers try to be serious, there’s always the opportunity for some serious entertainment.

Some people say (but I’m not one of them) that this entire Oscar debacle started when Will Smith didn’t get a Best Actor nomination for Concussion.  When you’re one of the coolest people on the planet (and a billion-dollar box office asset) you normally get what you want — whenever you want it — so it’s understandable that when Oscar said to Will, “Sorry, not this year,” his response was “WTF?”  Unfortunately, when your carefully crafted image is one of the coolest people on the planet, you can’t actually say WTF out loud — ya gotta dress it up a little bit.  So the reason the Oscar grapes are sour is ’cause they’re just too damn monochromatic, and apparently nobody noticed that before (including both times Will Smith was nominated for an Oscar in the past.)  Anyway, the entire entertainment community is now in a politically correct conundrum — and it’s not pretty.  What to do?  What to do?

Lucky for us, movie stars are smart.  (After all, what would the world do without their wise and thoughtful political insights?)  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will find a way out of this mess — the show must go on.

However, should they need some help … some people (but I’m not one of them) have offered this solution.  Raise the stakes, up the ante, show some muscle and invite Caitlyn Jenner to Oscar night.  Who in their wildest politically correct nightmare would boycott that?  Plus, and this is where the bike helmet meets the pavement, have her present the Oscar for Best Actor.  After all, Eddie Redmayne’s going to win for The Danish Girl.  Let’s face it, folks: this is definitely not going to be Leonardo DiCaprio’s year.  Even with his politically correct crocodile tears over climate change, the guy is just like so-o-o white, he’s blue.  (This is in no way an insensitive reference to DiCaprio’s death scene in Titanic, nor to the number of times he would have died of hypothermia if The Revenant was real.)

Some people (but I’m not one of them) think it’s hilarious that the politically correct Hollywood Hydra is now eating its own tail.  It’s a good thing I’m not involved, or I’d be laughing my ass off right now.

Disclaimer!  The politically incorrect views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of “some people” and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views or opinions held by WD Fyfe.
All characters and events in this blog — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional.  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is only in their own minds.
No actors were injured in the writing of this blog.

Conspiracy Theories

conspiracyThe world is full of conspiracy theories and they’re all bullshit.  The Masons didn’t start World War I.  Rockefeller and the Rothchilds didn’t organize the Stock Market Crash in 1929.  Aliens didn’t land in Roswell, New Mexico.  The Mafia didn’t kill Kennedy.  Neil Armstrong did walk on the moon, and — for God’s sake — Dick Cheney didn’t take down the Twin Towers on 9/11 for Haliburton or anyone else.  What a boatload of nonsense!

I have a friend who loves these conspiracies.  He saves them up to vex me.  He’s one of the smartest people I know, but he’s absolutely convinced that we’re being lied to by any number of secret societies and/or government agencies.  To be fair, in the age of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, he’s got a point.  However, it’s a huge stretch from the Ministry of Finance fudging the unemployment numbers to the Illuminati keeping aliens in the basement of the White House.

Everybody knows that conspiracy theories can be a lot of fun when you’ve opened that second bottle of wine after dinner, but the next morning?  Please!  Here’s the deal.  Every single conspiracy theory works on the same set of assumptions.  So let me put them to rest.

1 — One doesn’t not find overwhelming scientific evidence on The Discovery Channel, A&E, Facebook, Twitter or some out-of-print book you bought at Goodwill.  Sorry!  Overwhelming scientific evidence is that mountain of totally boring crap that the world’s scientific community generally agrees on.  In any reasonable discussion, it is their expertise that takes precedence — not some guy on YouTube, who claims to be an eye witness.  And, BTW, just because you and your girlfriend agree it’s a scientific fact, that doesn’t make it so.  Actually, without serious documentation it isn’t even a fact.

2 — The mainstream media has not been either cowed or coerced into ignoring some of the greatest news stories of all time.  Use your head!  Kim Kardashian flashes her North West Passage on Instagram, and every news outlet from Malibu to Mars covers it.  The reason Fox, CNN, MSNBC, BBC and Al Jazeera aren’t going wall-to-wall on the Alien Autopsy is because there never was one.

3 — It’s not reasonable to believe that a secret society and/or government agency capable of harnessing the huge resources needed to perpetrate a vast, worldwide conspiracy will then make a series of stupid mistakes that point directly to their nefarious purpose – errors so glaring that a teenager with a Pause button can figure them out in less than an hour.  Or even worse, why would a secret society and/or government agency ever leave an array of clues which actually reveal their cunning plan?  That kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a conspiracy in the first place.

4 — Likewise, in the army of people needed to pull off even the simplest cover-up — from the original planners to the guy who makes the sandwiches — it beggars belief that not one person, in not one conspiracy, ever had a crisis of conscience and suddenly confessed.  The laws of anti-chance alone dictate that somebody, somewhere, got drunk one night and told their lover – or their mother what they’re doing in Area 51.  Imagine, the joint custody dad in the messy divorce, “Look kids, aliens!  Betcha mom and her fancy man can’t do that?  Who’s the coolest dad EVER!”

I could go on for pages, documenting every conspiracy theory ever known for the hopeless Swiss cheese it is, but a picture is worth a thousand words.  Check out this very short Ted Talks video from Rives.  It is the ultimate mini-documentary on conspiracy theories.