Category: Social Media

The Weird Shall Inherit The Earth

daliJust when you thought our contemporary world couldn’t get any WTF weirder, the planet looks you straight in the eye and says, “Challenge accepted!”  Sometimes I think the 21st Century is a Salvador Dali painting inhabited by the cast and crew of Monty Python.  If our society was a George R.R. Martin novel, nobody would believe it.  But the problem is this stuff is true.

Last week, on a live radio broadcast, a couple of Danish DJs bashed a baby bunny over the head with a bicycle pump.  (Where’s PETA when you need them?)  They explained they did it to stimulate debate about our hypocritical attitude towards animals.  They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.  Apparently, bludgeoning bunnies to death — even on radio — drives social media nuts, and the term “heartless bastards” was used more than once.  My question is are these Danish DJs absolutely certain that there isn’t some nutbar out there planning to stimulate the debate about our hypocritical attitude towards DJs?

A televangelist in Turkey warned men not to masturbate because their hand will become pregnant in the afterlife.  Whoa!  Actually, I have no problem with people speculating about what happens to us after the dirt nap — we all wonder — but I’ve got some serious questions before I take this one on faith.  Asexual reproduction alone would keep the conversation going for years, and I don’t even know where to start speculating about how this is even anatomically possible.  However, my question is, given this scenario, what happens when women masturbate?

In their furor to protest Ireland’s acceptance of same sex marriage, the Westboro Church (a hate organization masquerading as a house of God) waved the Irish flag upside down to symbolize Ireland as a nation in distress.  Coincidentally, this turned  the Irish flag into the flag of the Ivory Coast.  Suddenly, Westboro’s chants and placards were condemning the wrong country!  My question is does Ivory Coast have some legal recourse under international law to force the Westboro Church to quit calling them names, and can they seek compensation for the damage already done?  Perhaps Westboro is making an honest mistake — I don’t think many of them have actually even heard of Côte d’Ivoire — but if you’re going to hate something, shouldn’t you be legally obligated to get it right?

And it never ends.  As Super Junior once said — à la Sonny and Cher — “The Beat Goes On.”

Vacation News From Europe

europeFor most North Americans Europe is a gigantic theme park off the coast of Great Britain.  It has wine, cheese, art and architecture, and even though it’s full of arrogant foreigners, we love to go there.  Of course, nobody west of Cape Cod actually cares what happens in Europe unless it happened in World War II.  However, every once in a while, European events do break through the MSNBC/FOX stranglehold on news — especially if they affect North American vacation plans.  That’s what happened last week.

Ireland Legalizes Same Sex Marriage.

What a blatant cash grab!  The Irish are the biggest tourism whores ever.  Not content with marketing shamrocks, shillelaghs, leprechauns, Bono and the colour green, now they’re after the international DINK (double income/no kids) community.  Make no mistake: those DINKs have money and the Irish want to get their hands on it.  To hell with the dying Celtic Tiger.  The Irish are going to create a wedding bells/honeymoon destination without any heterosexual limitations ’cause there’s a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.  If you thought the line for The Blarney Stone was long before … this summer, DINKs will be everywhere — on tour buses, hanging out in the pubs, peeking out the windows of the Bed & Breakfasts.  Personally, I think it’s brilliant, and when Irish TV starts broadcasting Gay Divorce Court, I’m totally watching.

French Government Makes It Illegal For Supermarkets To Destroy Edible Food.  They Must Donate It To Charity.

This is one of the meanest moves in French history.  In a nation of culinary snobs, forcing the poor to eat leftovers has got to be the ultimate slap in the face.  Whatever happened to LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ?  Basically, it’s, “Here’s the deal, mon frère: we’re all equal, but your Coq au vin is cold!”  It’s like a modern Marie Antoinette saying, “Let them eat day-old cake.”  And we all know what happened when the original Marie stuck her nose into French cuisine — heads did roll.  I don’t expect the Parisian mob to be shouting “Aux barricades!” any time soon, but there will be repercussions.  Rumour has it that Le Metro workers might go on strike this summer, and French waiters aren’t going to be quite so jovial as they have been in the past.

And that’s the news from Europe, North America — see you next year.

Letterman And The Ladies

lettermanI know this is too soon — but I can’t believe everybody is still sucking up to Letterman.  These days, to hear the story, he was the best thing since sliced bread met peanut butter and jelly.  God, it’s like the guy died or something!  Let’s be honest: Letterman hasn’t been funny since Ronnie Reagan ruled the world, and even then, he wasn’t much more than a pumped-up smartass.  Plus, and this is the weird thing, nobody’s talking about what Dave did best.  He beat the system.  Anybody else would have been bounced out of the Ed Sullivan Theatre for half of what Letterman got away with.

There are not many Strictly Verbotens in the land of high end celebrity.  However, one of the strictest is rich and powerful old men cannot have sex with their younger, poor and powerless female employees.  At the very least, this is sexual harassment, and at the other end of the scale it’s something a whole lot slimier.  During his TV career, David Letterman crossed this line — more than once and for extended periods — and in 2009, when circumstances backed him into a corner, he finally admitted it — on national TV.  Strangely enough, there was no public outcry, no group came forward to demand justice for the women or even advocate their protection and nobody — nobody — even suggested Letterman might be held accountable for his actions.  In fact, nothing happened.  Wow!

But, let’s get real.  The reality is it’s very difficult to point out the sinner when he’s the one who has the pulpit.  In 2009, Letterman had a huge audience — every night — and some very powerful friends.  He had a sharp comedic tongue and a roomful of badass writers to back him up.  Plus, over the years, he’d demonstrated that being on the wrong side of David Letterman was not a place you wanted to be.  Actually, it’s no wonder no one ever accused him of anything.  Personally, I’m not that brave.

The result was he walked away from the scandal unscathed, the women were never heard of again, and now Letterman is retiring with all the accolades of the comic genius he never was.  The thing I don’t understand is why are people kicking each other out of the way to praise the guy when anybody else would have been fired six years ago?