A Few Things I Heard on the Television

Television provides entertainment and education, but not all of the time. Once in a while, such as every single day, TV also provides idiocy. More and more each day it seems. Here are a few examples:

I was watching the news on Thursday morning, it so happened that it was also Thanksgiving. The parade hadn't begun yet, so I had the news on while waiting. The commentators were talking about the politicians they didn't like, or thought were failures. This is how they presented it, "In the Spirit of Thanksgiving, here are the top political turkeys of 2010." So, the Spirit of Thanksgiving is name calling? I could understand if it was gluttony, selfishness or consumerism, but name calling? I just don't see it.

I love toothpaste/toothbrush advertising. Just kidding, but I do like some of them. I think they overstate things just a bit. If you've been reading my blog from the beginning you might be familiar with a post I did regarding mouth cleaning back in March of this year (Sticking it to Tooth Decay, Cool Mint Style). This week brought another instance of entertaining advertising.

Isoactive Whitening Aquafresh is the product, a line from the commercial says "50% of cavities form between teeth." Immediately upon hearing this I thought about where the other 50% of cavities might appear. I came up with not in between teeth. Cavities can form between teeth or not between teeth. There are two options for where cavities can form on teeth. If they don't form in one place, they'll form in the other. A 50% chance that if they are not between teeth, they will be between teeth. Good enough.

Michael Jackson (I've typed about him before as well) had some great songs. He is as good as, better than or worse than many other musical artists. Now there is a Wii video game featuring his dancing and music. The tag line of the game is "His moves unite us, his game will electrify the world." Michael Jackson: The Experience is out in stores now. So enjoy the unity that his dancing has brought about and go get that game that will electrify the entire world. I'm thinking that anything I could say at this point would be redundant. You know, because the actual facts about this game are laughable without any humorous commentary.

Finally, last Saturday night I was fighting the urge to sleep and trying desperately to find something worth watching on the Television. It was a losing effort. Luckily I happened across a Christian talk show of some kind. The host was talking with the creator of a cartoon series that recounts the popular stories of the Bible. Just like any talk show with a person promoting their movie or series, this one showed clips from the show and the guy talked about it. He drove the point home that the stories were staying true to the text of the Bible. He said that they did the best they could to limit dialogue to actual words in the Bible. Adding only where necessary to keep the story flowing for the purpose of the cartoon.

They showed clips and he talked about the importance of staying true to the Bible. I don't know why I had stopped to watch this, and I didn't know why I continued to watch it, but then he said something that I am very happy to have heard. The man said something along the lines of "Our emphasis is on accuracy. We've kept it true to the Bible, and of course there's a robot and two kids in all of the stories." In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, a rotund robot, a young boy with an electric guitar and a girl with pig-tails. Yeah, that's exactly how I remember reading it. Accurate to a fault, Superbook, accurate to a fault.

There you have it. A few things I heard on the television recently that make me lose faith in human kind. We can do better than this. I know we can. Well, maybe not all of us.

A Few Facebook Statuses and My Responses

My brother coined our type of humor as conversational comedy. We don't make jokes or write sketches, we just respond to things we hear and incite laughter. You dig? We are both able to come up with funny things from scratch, but many of our jokes are responses to something someone else said. And not all of it is insulting to the person who said it. Some is. But that's irrelevant. You're right, that is an elephant. If you don't watch the Marx Brothers let me invite you to begin doing so now. Well, here are a few Facebook statuses from the news feed today, with my responses.

This first status comes from my BFF, Muffin Man:

"I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible — I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical"

Here is what I had to say about it (this status isn't from today, it was yesterday, I commented on it before work and then again after work):

"I believe that in so doing you will fall on your bottom and possibly sprain something. I cite the following as evidence: I once thought it would be a good idea to jump-kick two kickball's at the same time. I have two feet so I ought to be able to kick two things at once, right? I dropped the kickball's, jumped and attempted to kick them - I don't remember if I did or not as this was about the time I realized I was parallel to the ground in a cartoon style pause-in-mid-air-and-defy-gravity moment before I fell on my bottom and jammed both of my wrists in my bodies futile attempt to save itself. Both wrists hurt for about a month. All I'm saying is that unless you really are magical, as the Cirque du Soleil folks are, be careful about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

"As I have had the day to think this over, I suppose that if you are able to exercise restraint and only pull one bootstrap up at a time you will be able to succeed. But watch where you put that boot after you pull it up. If you aren't careful you'll put it right back into whatever you are pulling it out of."

Here is status number two. I don't know the author, I only saw it on my news feed because Muffin Man liked it. The author's name follows the status:

"Has anyone else noticed that the Biggest Loser has a better track record of creating marriages than the Bachelor?" - D. M. Peters

And what I think about that:

It just goes to show you that money can't buy you love, and that looks are the most important thing in a relationship.

This is the time when I realize that what seemed like fodder for an interesting/humorous blog post really isn't. I will post one more status that I like, but I don't have anything to say about:

"You know it's probably time to turn on the heat when you can see your breath in the living room." - C. Sweet (one of my BFF's from days gone by, middle school to be exact)

All I have to say to that is that I agree.

This has been another failed/mediocre attempt at humor, brought to you by Ajax the Whimsical Revolutionary.

Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown (and everyone else)!

Check Your Science at the Door

The creator of the phrase "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!" needs to check their science.

Honestly, can't names do real damage? I think so. It is unethical, but you could try it out for yourself. Just find someone you interact with regularly and start calling them jerk all the time. It won't take long before you see the effect. I strongly recommend you take my word for it. Don't try this at home, it is dangerous. This is why I suggest the following alternative to the school-yard saying.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names may upset the chemical balances in my brain, thereby altering my emotions, cognition, and behavior." - Ajax

I'd go on about Becker's Labeling Theory, but I just don't have the writing spirit right now. Just know that deviance results from a label. A name. If you are called something you become that something. Meaning that names are powerful and can hurt you. It also suggests that names can uplift a person. And if we are going in that direction then we also have to allow that sticks and stones can not only break bones, but build houses. Sticks could also be used to splint the very bones they have broken. This is getting out of control.

I will recap: Sticks and stones may break your bones, but sticks might help them heal later, and furthermore, sticks and/or stones might be used to build a shelter in order to protect further damage from being done to your bones. Names will never hurt you, if they are kind and supportive names, which inspire a person to become something new and better. Names will hurt you if they are given in a mean-spirit. People react to how they are treated, unconsciously even, so they don't even have to decide to be hurt by names for those names to hurt them.

Well, it's not perfect, but I could revise it some time and then all of the kids could start reciting it on the playground. Actually, I think it is well-meaning, if ill-informed, parents who keep the "sticks and stones" saying alive. Those parents ought to read this post and change the world. I'll go eat something now. Cheers!

Tony Danza: He's Still Got It!

I just woke up. Prior to waking up I had been dreaming. In this dream I was watching Tony Danza do a stand-up comedy routine, so-called because he was standing up while he delivered the routine. Here's what he said:

Do you want to know why the world ends? I'll tell you. Human one-upmanship escalation. No, really, it's no joke. You know how you have a group of people talking and one person has done this or that and there is a constant attempt to top whatever the last person said? One-upmanship. Well, one day there will be someone in this group and they are going to come up with the ultimate topper, they'll say, "Yeah, well my day was so bad, I woke up and everyone else was dead!"

That was the joke that Tony Danza said in my dream. It seemed pretty brilliant, not so much funny, but brilliant, while I was asleep. Then I was awake and remembered it, and realized this is why Who's the Boss? was cancelled. Zing! It was a dream, I don't know.

Science: The Great "Distractor"

I have nothing against science so far as it is the empirical gathering of evidence in attempts to better understand the world around us. I do take issue with science becoming a "distractor" from living life. I suppose it is just my personal bias that makes me think this way. I just feel like there is a tendency for some people to focus so much on what science says that they miss the purpose for life. They spend their lives worrying about asteroids they see on telescopes millions of miles from the earth, or melting ice. These things may be real dangers, but is there really anything we can do about them?

In regards to global climate change, I personally don't believe the people are big enough to destroy the planet. It might be possible, but I don't believe it. I think that God created this planet for a specific purpose, which is to give his children (all people) experience, and that purpose won't be defeated by people. Part of our experience is to learn and make decisions and act as agents according to our own will. It is this freedom to act that makes me leery of saying it is impossible for us to destroy the earth. I don't think it will ever happen, but if we have complete freedom to act then we must have some ability to do it. I do think there is a degree of arrogance in thinking that we are going to destroy the planet because of our actions.

However, we are responsible for the earth. If we act recklessly and waste things ungratefully then we will destroy ourselves, but not in the way of climate control. We are stewards of the planet. Animals included. Other people included. We need to look at why we are alive and how we fit in with the environment, animals and other people. We do have the power to destroy, but we also have the power to build and encourage.

Don't be distracted by the stuff. I know I need to make some changes. There is a lot of focus on 2012 and whether or not ancient prophecies about the end of the world are accurate. I don't know. It might be. I'm not going to focus on it, but I think that perhaps 2012 can have an amazing impact on the lives of everyone on the planet. If we choose for it to be. Rather than focus on the doomsday theories, we can all look at our lives and make the necessary adjustments. 2012 could be life changing for the global population. Hopefully it will be for the better. It starts with each of us individually.