Pretending Along

Hey Fat Americans, Trying to Lose Those Holiday Pounds?

Well, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would like to help. According to the London Times Zimbabwe's new "Obesity Tourism Strategy" aims to "bring in obese tourists from overseas so that they can shed pounds doing manual labour on land seized from white farmers."

The Times quotes a government newspaper:

Tourists can provide labour for farms in the hope of shedding weight while enjoying the tourism experience... Tour organisers may promote this programme internationally and bring in tourists, while agriculturalists can employ the tourists as free farm labour.

The tourists can then top it all by flaunting their slim bodies on a sun-downer cruise on the Zambezi or surveying the majestic Great Zimbabwe ruins.”

The Times article notes that this outlandish strategy demonstraits "how far the Mugabe regime has descended into a fantasy world."

Thank God...

...for these fucks on the television with their self-righteous indignation regarding the Monday Night Football promo.

If it wasn't for these amazing folks I would not have seen this truly offensive, "sexually suggestive" promo four times since this morning. Once on Good Morning America (8 am), once on CBS This Morning (810 am), twice on ESPN (6 and 7 pm), and once on HBO (10 pm). If it weren't for the folks who complained and the responsible news organizations I might never have known that this horrible spectacle was shown at 9pm WHEN CHILDREN WERE WATCHING!!!

A Thought

I’ve tried to keep this blog apolitical and not very emotional. It’s one of the reasons that I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve not been able to focus on something other than the current state of affairs. That said, I’m watching HBO’s Last Letters From Home. Every American should be forced to watch this. It is heartbreaking; it is agonizing; it is awful (awe-full in the original sense of the word).

I don’t know what to think. But let me be emotional/political here for a moment. There are so many young people. So much younger than me and I’m so young. We’re all just so young. But there folks, these people are children; 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25…; they’ve seen so much more than I’ve seen, and it’s been cut short so quickly. And to see their mothers, fathers, wives, brothers, and sisters is agonizing to a mere bystander, a viewer. What about to them.

Do we even have to be there.

Stupid Stupid People

I'm sure that everyone has heard about this, but I'm going to bitch about it anyway. Some idiots in Texas have forced a local school district to cancel its homecoming tradition, TWIRP (the woman is requested to pay) Day. The TWIRP tradition (sort of like a Sadie Hawkings day with a little powder-puff football thrown in for good measure) was opposed by a mother of 2 who viewed the event "not as a silly Homecoming Week activity, but rather something related to homosexuality."

According to CNN--and this is really too mind boggling for words--the woman said, " It's like experimenting with drugs," Davies said. "You just keep playing with it and it becomes customary. ... If it's OK to dress like a girl today, then why is it not OK in the future?" People actually think this way, it's fucking amazing.

CROSS DRESSING IS LIKE DRUGS. DON'T LET YOUR BOYS PLAY DRESS-UP OR THEY'LL END UP SUCKING COCK IN SOME BACK ALLEY IN A BIG EAST COAST CITY WITH HEROIN NEEDLES IN THEIR VEINS, BEING SODIMIZED BY LARGE, HAIRY LIBERALS!

Who says democracy is a good thing, these people should not be allowed to breed, much less vote.

Irony?

OK, so ABC, the NFL, and the Philadelphia Eagles have all apologized for the airing of a "sexually suggestive segment using Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens and several stars of 'Desperate Housewives' to introduce" Monday Night Football.

I understand that the media feel as if they are walking on egg shells lately because of recent indecency fines levied against them by the FCC. Fines which include the ridiculous $1.2m fine against Fox for "sexually suggestive" content in its "Married by America." The fine resulted from 90 complaints registered with the FCC from only 23 individuals. Moreover, it appears that

"all but two of [the letters] were virtually identical. In other words, one person took the time to write a letter and 20 other people then photocopied or merely emailed it to the FCC many times." via BuzzMachine

Apparently, to the FCC, three unique complaints qualify as violating the "contemporary community standards" for offensive content. Not that I would ever defend the merits or quality of a reality show, much less one produced by Fox.

But I digress getting to the irony. The Washington Post quotes Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney as saying, "It was the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen." Now forget the current state of the world--aid workers kidnapped and murdered in Iraq, US soldiers apparently executing injured insurgents, the Simpson sisters each having careers--if this is the ""most disgraceful thing" Mr. Rooney has ever seen, perhaps he should take a look at footage of his team and the Cleveland Browns before their Sunday game. Players from both teams spit on and shouted obscenities at each other, finally exchanging blows, all taped and broadcast across the nation.

Election Miscellanea

Election Commentary from My Brother, Colin:

From: Colin@emailaddress.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 11:05 PM
To: pretendingalong.email.com
Subject:

:(

Other Thoughts

Best expressed here

Soundtrack

Julie Whitaker offers a post-election playlist:

Metro Woes

A Red Line plowed backwards into into another train at the Woodley Park station today. According to a Washington Post staff member who was on the scent, a conductor was spotted on the platform.

The Post quotes him as saying:

"Oh man, I'm going to be blamed for this..."

Well it happened, we all knew it would: the Red Sox won the World Series and now the apocalypse is upon us.

Four more years…