This Sunday, CBS will broadcast a lengthy event featuring lots of strong, sweaty men grappling and wrestling each other to the ground, all in an effort to grab balls and plow through the other guys' back field. Meanwhile, large-breasted women in skimpy skirts and low-cut shirts will jump up and down enthusiastically in an effort to make the whole affair seem less homoerotic so that the majority of men watching will not wonder if they should be questioning their sexuality.
This year's Super Bowl will continue a long tradition of pitting millionaire athletes against one another in their quest to make more money and win some jewelry (a big sparkly ring, to be exact). It will also help the Department of Education meet its quota for exposing hillbillies to Roman numerals once per year.
Many times it's been said that we're a lot like the Romans of old. And it's true, really. They had their bread and circus; we have Doritos and Bud Light. They sometimes had corrupt Senates and demented, reckless leaders; ditto here. And as they loved to blow their money watching gladiators butcher each other, we get our kicks watching guys in helmets and pads wrestle and grope each other on account of an oddly-shaped ball.
Only I don't think that the businessmen of the Old World spent staggering sums so that they could disrupt the combat with ads for their latest sport-utility chariot. One of the big consequences of being part of a large, consumer-driven economy is that, as a general rule, the more you want to see something, the more advertising you'll have to suffer through. In the case of a sports event, you can often watch ten minutes of ads with occasional cuts back to the "action," where action is composed largely of a series of timeouts, false starts, and coaches arguing with referees as if it's going to serve any purpose other than to further stall the game.
So ... Why the fuck do people watch sports?
It's just another of those great mysteries of life, like where all those missing socks go or how babies are made (no one has been able to give me a serious, non-sexual explanation of that one yet). But mysterious or not, the influence of sporting events on daily life cannot be denied. So great is the potential of those gaps in the "action" that the television network can carve them up into thirty-second increments and try to sell each one for between 2-3Million dollars. The real crazy part is that people actually buy this time. Companies producing all sorts of stuff turn into ravenous beasts, gobbling up ad spots in hopes of getting us to gobble up their beer, cola, cars, and stock investment strategies.
(For those of you wondering when I'll get to my point, I'm just now arriving at it.)
Right now, members of the media are abuzz over Pat Robertson's claim that the earthquake in Haiti is the latest evidence that that nation is cursed. As quoted at thinkprogress.org, Robertson states:
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it’s a deal.' They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.
But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other ...
Robertson's particularly eloquent when he says things like "Napoleon the Third and whatever." But I especially love how every time he says, "True story," it becomes more apparent that the "Jerry Springer Show" show saves more American souls than "The 700 Club."
Joy Behar wonders just how Pat Robertson knows that the Haitians made that pact with Satan. But I don't wonder. I've known for many years that Pat Robertson is, in fact, the Prince of Darkness. That's right. Pat Robertson (not Ozzy Osbourne) is the Devil. So, if Haiti made that pact, he'd be the one to know about it.
Today's vote means that inequality is alive and well in the Garden State, that oddly-shaped piece of east-coast real estate that's popular these days for being the home of 8 of the dumbest and, more to the point, skankiest heterosexuals in the entire world — the Guidos and Guidettes of MTV's "Jersey Shore."
Why mention those jackasses? Because it'll never cease to amaze me that I'm not allowed to be legally married in that state because my love was put to a vote and deemed immoral, but no one would dare deny 8 sluttards, who spend their nights drinking, fighting and whoring, and their days avoiding responsibility, the right to marry based on their behavior (or the simple fact that together they probably can't spell STD).
In Jersey, as in so many other states, it's one man, one woman — with absolutely no regard for how that man treats that woman, or vice versa.
Steven Goldstein, CEO of Garden State Equality said this of the vote: "This is not the end of the line. We will continue working towards marriage equality through lobbying, legal challenges, and citizen outreach. Every opportunity to highlight the inequalities experienced by same-sex couples brings us closer to our goal.”
True. But we must also highlight the douchebaggery. I mean, how many inequalities do voters have to ignore before the gay community finally rubs their faces in the hypocrisy? What are we waiting for?
Whatever you might think about the health care face-off in Washington, chances are you never thought it would come down to this:
On Wednesday night, The Family Research Council, led by Tony Perkins, conducted a "prayercast" in which some members of Congress (Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia, and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota) along with James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and a host of other characters, gathered to ask God to forgive the sins of our leaders who want to reform health care.
When I first watched the video of her prayer (below), I immediately thought that C-SPAN should take a
hint from MTV's latest hit "Jersey Shore" and offer Bachmann a starring role in a
similar show called "Potomac Shore." She is, after all, an attention-seeker, what I'd call "a bossie" and what the cast of "Jersey Shore" would probably call "a hater." She likes things done her way, and right away, and she doesn't care who doesn't get insurance laid as a result. Plus, like "Jersey Shore" cast member Snookie, she'd probably mistake Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for singer Lionel Richie.
Seriously. Don't you think this is a great idea? I do. I think it's so great that I've already written her bio:
Michele Bachmann is a Christian girl with zero self-control! She knows exactly what she wants from her summer at the Potomac
Shore. If she's got
something on her mind, it's because God put it there. That's right,
Michele talks directly to God and she doesn't care what anybody thinks
about it. The question is, how long will her housemates put up with it?
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