Vacation In Retrospect

January 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Lizzi and I returned yesterday from a week’s vacation.  Our time away was mostly spent in Phoenix and Boulder, punctuated by quick trips to Tucson and Breckenridge.  Though the comforts of home are always easily greeted, the trip was an overall joy, save for the occasional bed bug attack and gradual loss of sanity arising from endless packing and unpacking.

In Phoenix, we spent most of our time catching up with my family.  This involved plenty of eating (La Grande Orange was tops for brunch and dinner at ZuZu in the Hotel Valley Ho wasn’t too shabby), a quick trip to Tucson for a tour of the University of Arizona with my little brother (lunch at Pasco Kitchen was fantastic), a brisk hike up Piestewa Peak, and your standard moments of familial annoyance.  There was also, of course, the obligatory philosophical debate with grandma.  The impetus being that I promised to read her book on cosmic consciousness if she would promise to read my blog, which I’m pretty sure she considers heretic crap.  What followed was a revelation that grandma, ever the mystic, exists in the fourth dimension.  This makes it hard for her to communicate with spiritual infants who flounder aimlessly in 3D.  My inquiries into how she graduated to 4D and who had decision-making authority to grant her such access were met with agitation.  I therefore chose to bite my tongue and allow grandma her moment of spiritual condescension.  Though we disagree wholeheartedly on many topics, I love grandma for her verve…and for the inspiration she provides a certain atheist blogger.

We also enjoyed making fun of “the best boutique hotel” in Phoenix, The Clarendon.  The “best of” moniker is in quotations since it appears to be self-proclaimed (the “rewards” section on its website is mysteriously inoperable), kind of like how millions of coffee shops across the U.S. lay claim to the world’s best coffee.  (A visit to the hotel’s website also reminds me that I should hold in suspicion any company whose web address ends in .net)  Our stay started out strange enough.  Upon entering the lobby (situated more as a hallway entrance), I was immediately overcome by the feeling of shadiness.  It’s hard to describe why but let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were multiple drug deals going down in the dark recesses of the hotel’s general areas.  Though plenty friendly, the lady behind the counter spent an inordinate period of time explaining to us the very basic rules of hotel-staying.  (“Yes, we’re well aware of all that, this not being our first rodeo.”)  And she was infused with a special sense of pride given her role as keeper of the snacks (these were free, she’d have us know, several times over).  She also made us aware that those snacks would for the evening be delivered by her teenage daughter, who clearly had nothing better to do over her winter break than to accompany her mother on the graveyard shift.  This was as depressing as it was strange.

Once in our room, we were entertained by the overbearing scent of cheap air freshener, the blaring of an alarm from across the hall that was apparently set for 10 PM everyday, and a woeful attempt at art house decor.  The bathroom was impossibly small, a situation made funnier by the fact that the faucet would only run cold unless the shower was turned on hot at the same time.  On our trips to the elevator we had plenty of time to observe the pool scene since the elevator took twelve minutes to navigate four floors.  The pool was set at the bottom of the hotel’s open air atrium, giving the place a seedy motel feel.  This picture was made complete by the invariable sight of a floating, mustachioed man made buoyant by generous amounts of excess fat…nursing a beer…at 9:30 in the morning.  On vacation, this is an acceptable – if not encouraged – move.  But it was being executed with a level of nonchalance indicative of standard procedure rather than occasional indulgence.  The image of this man perfectly encapsulates the Clarendon experience, not to mention the bed bug attack that Lizzi is pretty sure occurred during the final night of our stay.

Once in Boulder, we were granted a reprieve in both company and accommodation.  Comfortably ensconced in the tasteful St. Julien Hotel, we spent most of our stay getting caught up with some very dear friends, two of whom were in town from Sydney and one of whom now calls the Denver area home.  The former group represents for us the highlight of our Tokyo stay while the latter gentleman is among the funniest people I know.  He’s the kind of guy who routinely turns otherwise problematic situations into cause for uproarious laughter.  For example, having recently encountered some problems with Lasik surgery, he greets the staff upon his (many) follow-up trips to the eye clinic by playfully pointing out the nurse “responsible” for the mishap (“There she is!  That’s the one!”, delivered with a shit-eating grin in a manner designed to exact maximum discomfort).  He then proceeds to read a very clear and very large letter “P” during the eye exam as a “4″.  Perplexed, the nurse explains that he should be seeing letters.  To this my friend replies, “Then why are you putting numbers up there?!”.

Boulder is a great little spot, boasting lots of cool shops and great restaurants (I recommend Salt and Kitchen).  Being a college town, it’s a blue dot in the middle of a red state.  It had a sort of Bohemian vibe to it, reminding me slightly of Berkeley.  Notwithstanding my fiscal conservatism, I feel awfully comfortable in these towns.  I even find the preponderance of street performers and beggars charming.  One young lady had the word “love” partially spelled out with loose change and would ask passers-by if they’d help her make love on the sidewalk.  I found this clever, which suggests to me that my socially liberal tendencies win out in the end.  Or maybe I’m just open-minded and intellectually flexible, as evidenced by my willingness to visit Lefthand Books and leaf through literature celebrating Che, anarchism, and collectivism.  Of course, I also chuckled at the notion that the store exists through the efforts of volunteers that are ironically in short supply (judging by various announcements on its website and doorway).

We left Boulder for a day-and-a-half to hit the slopes in Breckenridge, about a 90-minute drive west.  Thanks to some pretty heavy snowfall during the drive out, our journey was a rather precarious one that left me thankful we opted for the Subaru Outback as our rental.  Given the poorly marked roads, mountainside curves, and absence of artificial lighting, I wouldn’t be surprised if Colorado leads the U.S. in highway fatalities.  Having left in the early afternoon, we made it to Breckenridge with just enough time to catch about an hour’s worth of skiing.  This being my first time on skis, I acquitted myself rather well and managed to feel moderately comfortable by hour’s end.  This gave me a false sense of confidence heading into the next morning when I felt compelled to follow our group of advanced-skier friends along the Blue route to meet up with some other friends at One Ski Hill on Peak 8 (we were coming from the Hyatt on Peak 9).  I somehow managed to survive the trek though not without the occasional face plant.  One wipeout was particularly good, falling just short of a full yardsale (I learned that this is ski slang for a crash involving the loss of both skis, poles, goggles, gloves, and hat).  On this particular fall, I managed to shed both skis along with my pride.  For some reason, my instincts force me to always cut left when attempting to stop (a technique I picked up while watching skiing on television).  This is perhaps because I’m right-handed and therefore have more confidence in my right foot/leg serving as the brake.  I happened to arrive at this attempted stop at what I perceived as being breakneck speed, a term for which I’ve developed a newfound appreciation.  Upon cutting to my usual left, I immediately lost the plot.  My body’s momentum kept going downhill while my feet tried to stay planted at an angle.  Physics being what they are, my feet lost that battle, which caused me to somersault uncontrollably a solid 15-20 feet as my skis quickly departed from my boots.  My head snapped back pretty violently when I hit the ground (thank you, helmet) and I was certain that I bit off the front half of my tongue (luckily that was not the case).  As fate would have it, this all occurred in front of our friends, all of whom were parked at the bottom of the hill graciously waiting for the idiot beginner in the group to catch up.  I figured the least I could do was reward their patience with a first-rate wipeout.

I left Breckenridge with only a moderate appreciation for skiing.  It is plenty fun as an activity but the build-up is draining.  First, you spend lots of money on gear (gloves, goggles, coat, pants, socks, long underwear, hat, etc.).  Then you pack all that gear into an overstuffed bag and head for the airport.  Then you drive a couple hours from the airport to the resort.  Then you spend more money renting skis, boots, helmets, etc.  Then you spend fifteen minutes putting on all that gear.  Then you waddle out to the nearest ticket office and spend silly money for a day pass.  Then you find the nearest gondola, which takes you ten minutes up the hill where you then wait in line for another ski lift to take you to some such run or another.  When you’re finally at the top, you spend a few minutes actually skiing before waiting another 10-15 minutes in line for another lift that will take you 10 minutes up the hill again for another 3-5 minutes worth of skiing.  For me, I didn’t derive enough utility out of the skiing itself to justify the premium spent in time and money.  I’m told the above frustrations are a function of choosing a popular destination like Breckenridge.  In which case, I look forward to visiting a less cumbersome spot in the future.  For her part, Lizzi did great and managed to escape the mountains with nary a spill.  And I’m pretty sure she got a kick out of my wipeouts, so I suspect her experience was more of a net positive.

I got a fair amount of reading done over the break.  On our flight out to Phoenix, I read “Farther Away“, Jonathan Franzen’s fantastic contribution to the New Yorker from last April.  In it, Franzen remembers his old friend, David Foster Wallace, while ruminating on Robinson Crusoe and the concept of solitude during a trek to one of the world’s most remote islands.  This notion of distraction-free individuality providing fertile ground for creativity has long been espoused by Franzen, whose collection of personal essays is entitled How To Be Alone and whose rules for writing include “It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”  It just so happens that my Sunday NY Times greeted my return with an OpEd written by Susan Cain about the “Rise of the New Groupthink“.  Among other things, the article talks about how people are more creative when they are alone and free from interruption, that “solitude is a catalyst to innovation” and that “we’re often so dazzled by charisma that we overlook the quiet part of the creative process.”  So the fact that I usually blog with the television on, music in the background, and dozens of open web pages probably explains why my writing is such shit.

Despite my mediocrity, I intend to write a book this year, so the above resonates with me as I attempt to crystallize my own thoughts on the creative process.  Seeking inspiration during our trip, I sequestered myself away in the Boulder Bookstore for a couple of hours one day.  I spent my time there reading snippets of Franzen, Wallace, Salinger, Bolano, Pynchon, Fitzgerald, Heller, Mitchell, and Klosterman.  An eclectic collection of voices, I was looking for help in understanding tone and rhythm, whether in essay or novel form.  I was also secretly hoping that surrounding myself with such genius would somehow imbue me with magical abilities of my own.  But instead of becoming more learned and inspired, I left feeling somewhat defeated.  Reading the work of these brilliant writers brought about a wave of insecurity in my own abilities.  How could I possibly have anything to add to a world already gifted with such talent?  This feeling of desperation lasted about an hour before I convinced myself that what I just did was akin to an aspiring singer listening to Ray LaMontagne or Aretha Franklin and deciding to pack it in.  When instead they should be looking to Brittany Spears as inspiration.  If the entertainment industry has taught us anything, it’s that mediocrity is often handsomely rewarded.  For every Louis C.K., there’s a Dane Cook.  For every Conan O’Brien, there’s a George Lopez.  For every Bill Clinton, there’s a Barack Obama.  (Zing!)

While perusing the bookshelves I came across the author George Saunders, about whom I vaguely recall hearing in the past.  I picked up The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil and read it on the flight back to Chicago, along with a couple of chapters from his collected essays, The Braindead Megaphone.  Phil was fun as a quirky, Vonnegutesque form of social commentary.  But I’m enjoying more his collection of essays.  The first story in Braindead is where the book takes its name.  It’s a brilliant treatise on today’s media and echoes many of my own sentiments on the topic (save for the leftward lean).  This is something I’ve blogged about in the past and come increasingly close to doing again with each viewing of those sanctimonious “Lean Forward” ads on MSNBC.

But if we define Megaphone as the composite of hundreds of voices we hear each day that come to us from people we don’t know, via high-tech sources, it’s clear that a significant and ascendant component of that voice has become bottom-dwelling, shrill, incurious, ranting, and agenda-driven.  It strives to antagonize us, make us feel anxious, ineffective, and alone; convince us that the world is full of enemies and of people stupider and less agreeable than ourselves…

In a time of danger, the person sounding the paranoid continual alarm will eventually be right.  A voice arguing for our complete rightness and the complete wrongness of our enemies, a voice constantly broadening the definition of ‘enemy’, relieves us of the burden of living with ambiguity.

I also managed to read some of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, which did its part in keeping me on the road towards a plant-based diet. By the way, I had a partner in all this reading, as Lizzi could be spotted at any given time curled up with her Kindle devouring The Hunger Games trilogy.

So here I sit, the evening before my return to the office, feeling less stoked than usual about getting back to work after a long break.  Unless there’s a huge market for mediocre writing out there, this better be a fleeting feeling.

Filed Under: Books, Media, Religion, Travel Tagged With: , , , , ,

Denis Leary Is A Fan Of Eddyfication

December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

That’s the only logical conclusion one can derive following his latest string of Tweets, which just so happens to occur within days of my post Oh, The Irony Of It All:

‘Xmas has been overtaken by consumerism.’

So says The Pope.

While sitting in a solid gold chair. Wearing red Prada shoes. In an apt. full of priceless artwork.

Who’s the patron saint of irony?

P.S. On the 0.2% chance Denis Leary ever actually reads this, I was totally kidding about that whole being a fan bit.
Filed Under: Comedy, Religion Tagged With:

Oh, The Irony Of It All

December 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Pope used his Christmas Eve mass this year as yet another occasion to decry the commercialization of Christmas.  He said we should look past the “superficial glitter” of the season and instead focus on “the child in the stable in Bethlehem”.  Being a fan of all things ironic, I enjoyed that this message was being delivered by a Prada-wearing pontiff who resides over the single richest institution on the planet.  Indeed, the Catholic Church has over the ages perfected the art of many things, not least of them the ability to achieve ginormous commercial success.

Consider first the rather high likelihood that Jesus wasn’t even born on December 25.  The Bible gives no specific date of birth and descriptions of the manor scene are suggestive of Spring rather than Winter.  In those times, birthdays were less relevant than death days, so not much was made of Jesus’ birth until the church’s brain trust decided to make a play for popularity by taking on the popular pagan religions of the time (most of whom engaged in special celebrations around the time of the Winter solstice).  As church leaders debated strategies for supplanting the popular cults, they chose to wage a head-to-head battle for attention on an already established sacred date.  December 25 had long been the pagan day for celebrating the births of their own gods, but now the upstart Christians would claim that day as their own.  In a masterful twist of revisionist history – and a brilliant stroke of marketing – church leaders declared that December 25 just so happened to also be the day when their Jesus Christ was born (note this declaration was made some 400 years after Jesus’ death).  This made it easier for converts to transition to a new belief system since they were already accustomed to treating this time of year as holy.  Location, framing, and timing are crucial to the success of many businesses, something to which the early church leaders were highly attuned.

Christianity – more specifically, Catholicism – took this temporal sleight of hand and built one of the most successful commercial enterprises of all time.  It is a fact that the Vatican has amassed ungodly sums of money through centuries of force and fleecing, a wealth that is flaunted in its grandiose cathedrals and priceless art collections.  And we can be sure that churches across the globe are doing their part to grow (or at least sustain) that wealth by using the holy season to maximize their revenues through timely manipulation of spiritual heartstrings.  Marketing, positioning, branding.  These are hallmarks of any commercial pursuit.  And dare I say that the Pope and his peeps are among the savviest purveyors of their product this planet has ever seen.

Christmas can, of course, be a time for contemplation and good deeds.  And in many cases – thankfully – it is.  But it’s also a nice reminder for the realists among us that money makes the great world spin.  For money is the root of all power, a fact easily observable in the spheres of finance, entertainment, politics, education, sports, and – yes – religion.  The reality is the consumerism that the Pope pretends to discourage is the very lifeblood of his existence.  The church needs its parishioners to have disposable income so that they can be in a position to tithe (and consume goodwill).  This requires some degree of economic growth in a particular society, which is dependent upon consumption.  The more people consume, the more economic activity there is.  The more economic activity there is, the more earnings there are for companies to distribute as income.  The more income there is, the more donations the church can hope to receive.  On a truly spiritual level, I’d bet that the Pope would prefer that everyone sat around praying, being thankful, and thinking about doing good deeds.  But on a practical level, you can be your bottom dollar that the Christmas his church really wants is precisely the one that it currently has.

Speaking of irony, someone who enjoyed such incongruities was Christopher Hitchens, who sadly lost his battle with esophageal cancer last week.  He would’ve found ironic the fact that he left this world just days before the death of one of history’s most detestable human beings, Kim Jong Il.  For Hitch was an opponent of many things, not least of which included totalitarianism and dogma of any stripe, making him an enemy of despots and religious zealots the world over.  Some might paint his “militant” atheism as being evidence of his own dogmatism but that would miss the point.  While his distaste for religion undoubtedly served to nurture his own penchant for contrarianism (not to mention a good fight), his spiritual denials had more to do with rejecting the obsequiousness that comes with blind devotion to any cause or person.  He despised cults of personality and the mass suffering they had the potential to produce.  He detested the rejection of reason that is a prerequisite for faith.  His disappointment in humanity was palpable whenever he contemplated the killing done in religion’s name.  His battle wasn’t with the religious per se but with the hypocrisy, violence, and disingenuousness that religion often begets.  And while some claim that his outspoken assault on religion was a war on belief writ large (making him as much the fundamentalist as his opponents), Hitch was no more a proselytizer of atheism than a science professor is an advocate for the scientific method.  His erudition made it easy to maintain courage in his convictions, and watching him dismantle arguments (with spoken or written word) was truly a sight to behold.  He was a writer, thinker, and agent provocateur of the highest order.  It’s easy to conclude that the world is a much better place without the likes of Kim Jong Il in it.  The same most definitely cannot be said about Hitch.  From his loss, nothing is to be gained.

Filed Under: Politics, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

Undecided About God

December 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

I came across an interesting piece on religion in today’s NY Times.  It speaks to the growing number of Americans who don’t identify with a particular religion, a group otherwise known as the “Nones”.  Nones account for 12% of the U.S. population and trends suggest that their numbers are growing.  Like me, a portion of that demographic falls into the non-believer category; however, a much larger percentage believes in a god but simply eschews the monstrosity that is organized religion.

The article is a rather interesting, even-handed piece that got this particular atheist’s wheels turning.  That’s not to say it did anything to sway my own opinion on the topic, but it’s nice to see someone approach the topic in such unencumbered fashion.

Nones don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.” (We believe that G. K. Chesterton got it right when he said: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”)

By that measure, there is very little “good religion” out there. Put bluntly: God is not a lot of fun these days. Many of us don’t view religion so generously. All we see is an angry God. He is constantly judging and smiting, and so are his followers. No wonder so many Americans are enamored of the Dalai Lama. He laughs, often and well.

The author, a chap named Eric Weiner, hopes for the emergence of a “Steve Jobs of religion” at the end of the piece, someone who could transform our collective approach to spirituality to make it more inviting for the inquisitive and doubtful among us.  Now there’s something I could get behind!

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: , ,

One Reason Why I Kinda Like Jon Huntsman

August 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

He brings a level of rationality that often goes missing in today’s political discourse (particularly among conservatives), as evidenced by a recent tweet:

To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.

And comments he made this morning on ABC’s “This Week”:

When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position…we actually were willing to shun science and become a party that was antithetical to science. I’m not sure that’s good for our future and it’s not a winning formula.

Filed Under: Politics, Religion, Science Tagged With: , ,

Chain World

August 17, 2011 By 1 Comment

Very interesting article from Wired about a revolutionary video game called Chain World, which took first place at the 2011 Game Design Challenge whose theme this year was “games as religion“:

The [memory] stick would soon hold a videogame unlike any other ever created. It would exist on the memory stick and nowhere else. According to a set of rules defined by Rohrer, only one person on earth could play the game at a time. The player would modify the game’s environment as they moved through it. Then, after the player died in the game, they would pass the memory stick to the next person, who would play in the digital terrain altered by their predecessor—and on and on for years, decades, generations, epochs. In Rohrer’s mind, his game would share many qualities with religion—a holy ark, a set of commandments, a sense of secrecy and mortality and mystical anticipation. This was the idea, anyway, before things started to get weird. Before Chain World, like religion itself, mutated out of control.

Filed Under: Religion, Tech Tagged With: ,

Papal Profligacy

August 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I might be one of the few people on the planet thoroughly amused by the righteousness of this article from today’s NY Times about the Pope’s upcoming trip to Spain.  Here’s the world’s richest institution putting on a highly expensive (marketing) trip to a country in the midst of serious financial difficulties.  I trust you’ll forgive me a moment of hypocrisy as I don my angry liberal cap and judge the spending habits of others.

How…can the Roman Catholic Church be getting ready for a lavish $72 million celebration in [Madrid] — some of it paid for with tax dollars — when Spain is in the midst of an austerity drive, the unemployment rate for young people is 40 percent and…parishioners are losing their homes to foreclosure every day?

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: ,

Preaching Baby

August 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

These next two videos are awesome on so many levels.  On the one hand, the viewer might understandably experience some discomfort at the notion that a young, impressionable mind is being led to act in such strange ways by simply observing those around it.  On the other hand, I can’t help but marvel at the notion that this child is being applauded by a group of people who are totally oblivious to the fact that the kid’s antics are an accidental yet highly effective commentary on the absurdity of their beliefs and traditions.  All this entertaining little guy is doing is imitating the over-the-top rambunctiousness of your run-of-the-mill pulpit pounder, spewing a bunch of nonsense in a setting where form very often wins over substance.  The little guy has hit on the key to success in the business of many religious congregations:  it’s more about the performance and the show than it is the message.  When your clients – er, parishioners – serve as a captive audience, you need to earn that paycheck by putting on your dancing shoes!

Here’s the cute little guy when he’s around two years old:

And here he is as a four year-old grizzled vet:

 

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With:

Talkin’ Smack

August 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Our lovely little neighborhood is hosting a street festival this weekend called Northalsted Market Days.  The large quantity of booze, food, and music on offer has attracted about 95% of Chicago’s LGBT community to the section of Halsted that spans Belmont to Addison.  As I ran past the Belmont entrance on my run this afternoon I couldn’t help but stop to ponder the following scene: A large Catholic church located at the corner of Belmont and Halsted had a sign that read “Have pity on us, Lord” as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” was blaring amid the mayhem about fifty yards away.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Filed Under: Chicago, Religion Tagged With:

Shouts & Murmurs

July 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

For those of you who don’t subscribe to The New Yorker because of the impossibility of keeping up with its sheer density, I get it.  However, its Shouts & Murmurs section might be worth the price of subscription (especially when combined with all the great cartoons).  A sampling from the past two weeks:

“Summer Fun For Boys” by Tim Long:

During the last week of August, walk to Walmart to buy school supplies. Along the way, approach a man and a woman shaking hands and ask, “Is this what sex is?” Repeat with couples who are gardening, eating lunch, waiting for a bus, and playing miniature golf.

“The Pope’s Tweets” by Paul Rudnick:

I loved that best-seller about the boy who momentarily died and went to Heaven, but all I wanted to ask was, “Did He say anything about me?”

During a papal audience, I put folks at ease by asking, “Are you gay?” Then I say, “Kidding!” Then I go, “No, seriously, are you gay?”

 

Filed Under: Comedy, Literature, Religion Tagged With: ,

Photos Of The Day

June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is what kinda sorta makes those Chicago winters worth it:

And this might be the best bumper sticker ever (h/t Lizzi for spotting it):

Filed Under: Chicago, Religion

The Dalai Lama Walks Into A Pizza Shop

June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I rather enjoyed this bit of Aussie tomfoolery:

Filed Under: Religion, TV Tagged With: , ,

After The Rapture

May 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

There is plenty of humor to be taken from the latest rapture hoopla.  My favorite gem to come from this might be the enterprising folks behind the various post-rapture pet care services.  Impressively entrepreneurial and/or wonderfully sarcastic?  Either way, I love it!

Take, for example, After The Rapture Pet Care whose proprietors smartly ask:

The Rapture will be a joyous time for Christians.  But when we’re gone, what will happen to our pets?

For just $10 one can buy peace of mind that their pets will be cared for when their owners ascend to the sound of trumpets.

Those over at Eternal Earth-Bound Pets play up their Atheism to guarantee that they will in fact be left behind to care for pets of the saved.  The price tag is a bit hefty at $135.  But if you love your dog the way we do ours, it’s a pittance.  Of course, this assumes that all dogs do not go to heaven, which I find incredibly hard to believe (especially since there is a Disney movie testifying to its truth).

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: ,

Apocalyptic Apologies

May 21, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’ve been meaning to update this here blog for the better part of three weeks.  For reasons having to do with schedule, inspiration, and downright laziness (let’s be honest), I simply couldn’t be bothered. Whatever the case, my apologies to the twelve of you out there who check this site religiously for updates.  To take the great Sperminator’s famous quote to my own conclusion, I won’t be back – I am back!

Why now to make my much-anticipated comeback, you ask?  Well, lucky for us, fate arrived in the form of Harold Camping to awake me from my blogging slumber.  Those of you who know me will not be surprised that I couldn’t let a Bible-based prediction of the end times go without mention.  I don’t really have much to add to the already massive wave of popular backlash against this guy and his silly (and expensive) campaign to notify everyone of the impending rapture (May 21) and subsequent end of the world (sometime in October).  However, I did have fun contemplating the logistical clusterfuck that must involve gathering a couple billion “saved” souls and shepherding them to heaven.  Can you imagine?  All the cases of mistaken identity, getting everyone gathered and processed in a reasonable amount of time (here’s hoping the angels in charge took a course in Operations Management at Chicago Booth), and transporting everyone to the magical beyond.  Plus, what happens if – as in the case of a friend – people are on airplanes or otherwise unreachable.  What’s gonna happen to them?  My head hurts just thinking about it.

I’m guessing god saw the new ad campaign for Christopher Nolan’s third – and final – Batman installation and decided to hold off a bit.  That Bane character (below) looks like a total badass.  And the music is sick and creepy in a very good way.  I’m certain it will be worth waiting for.

It’s 6:45 CST and Mr. Camping’s prediction called for the rapture to commence at 6 PM on the west coast.  So I suppose the old man still has a shot at redemption (pun intended).  In which case – ever the hedger – I’d like to point out to god that I was just kidding with all that atheist stuff.  Though I had no rational reason to believe that he actually existed and that his “son” wasn’t just another in a long line of religious nuts/manipulative charlatans, I had faith nonetheless.  Just like Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Mormons, I believed!

Filed Under: Misc., Movies, Religion

Celebrating The Book Of Mormon In NYC

March 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Just returned from a quick trip to New York and am happy to report that the city is just as great as I remembered it.  Stayed at The London NYC, a cool boutique hotel located at 57th and 7th, just down the road from Radio City and a couple blocks from Central Park.  In addition to being nicely appointed and surprisingly spacious (a boutique with a suite, hoorah!), it had a welcomingly chill vibe and managed a chic feel without the pretension.  On the dining front, I took down a borderline-magical pork chop complemented by some very solid french onion soup at Bar Americain on the first night, which was followed by some scrumptious chili calamari and chicken parmesan the next night at Bobby Van’s.

As satisfying as the lodging and dining experiences were, the highlight of the trip was a new Broadway musical called The Book of Mormon.  A collaboration between the genius tandem of Matt Parker & Trey Stone (of South Park fame) and Robert Lopez (Tony Award-winning writer of Avenue Q), Mormon is a wonderfully satirical take on the ridiculous, modern, and very American religious brain fart of Joseph Smith: the Church of Latter Day Saints.  After spying comedians Jon Stewart and Louis CK in the small audience of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, I knew I was in for a treat.  And, as expected, the show was nothing short of brilliant.  Sharp, witty, highly offensive, and downright pitch-perfect, I left overwhelmingly satisfied.  Though I’m clearly no expert on the topic, I’ll happily agree with Vogue that Mormon “may just be the funniest musical of all time”.  As evidence, I point to a mouth still sore from 2.5 hours of nonstop smiling and the first laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying fit that I’ve had in years.  The show officially debuts on March 24th (ours was part of a preview run) and here’s hoping that it will mark the start of a long and successful stint on the Great White Way.

I highly encourage anyone interested in good old blasphemous fun to check out Mormon at the earliest opportunity.  I know I shall be back very soon for a second helping, for I believe that tomorrow is a latter day indeed!

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God Is A Pittsburgh Steelers Fan

November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Buffalo Bills wideout Steve Johnson dropped the winning touchdown in his team’s eventual loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday.  Devastated, Johnson decided to tweet his dissatisfaction with god:

I praise you 24/7!!!!!  And this is how you do me!!!!!!  You expect me to learn from this????  How?????  I’ll never forget this!!  Ever!!!  Thx tho…

I suppose it’s only natural for athletes to blame god when things go wrong just as they praise him when they go well.  I just hope god has a Twitter account (he is, after all, on Facebook…I think).  And is it just me or is the “thx tho” at the end a brilliant touch?

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing what Johnson wants for Christmas when he tweets his wishlist to Santa.

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Heard A Good Quote Today

November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If atheism is a religion, then baldness is a hair color.

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WTF?

November 26, 2010 By 1 Comment

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Musings On A Halloween Sunday

October 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I started my day today in typical Sunday fashion – with a swift kick in the nuts (otherwise known as the Irish game).  After the whuppin’ suffered at the hands of the Midshipmen last week, the Irish decided to lay down again yesterday, this time at home against Tulsa.  One can be forgiven for assuming the Irish would destroy an opponent such as the Golden Hurricane – named as such because Tulsa has lots of hurricanes(?) and…er…gold(?) – but that was before god decided to smite Irish football.  Sandwiched between these past two losses was the tragic death of an ND student who died when the scissor stand he was using to film practice collapsed amid gale force winds.  Coach Brian Kelly assumed responsibility for the call to have practice outdoors that day, so we can add that horrific determination to the long list of terrible strategic decisions he’s made throughout the season.  Of course, as Barney Frank and Isaiah Thomas have taught us, strong decision-making skills aren’t prerequisites for job security, so I’m sure Coach Kelly will be just fine.  In the meantime, we’ll have to consult Pat Robertson to see why god hates his favorite university so much.  I’m guessing it has something to do with allowing gays to serve in the military, as I’m sure he really hates that.  But if that were indeed the case, wouldn’t he have wanted ND to beat Navy last week?  So maybe he’s just pissed about the enduring popularity of Jersey Shore, or the fact that the iPad doesn’t support Adobe Flash.  Either way, it’s clear he’s got it out for the Irish.  And he’s definitely not making time for all those prayers being sent his way from the grotto each week.

I decided that the Irish loss would be best forgotten with a run around the palace, where it turns out a special Halloween race was underway.  Unfortunately, the most outrageous outfit I could find was someone running with a massive sombrero and wearing hot pink tights.  I blended in nicely with my own costume, that of a pasty expat sponsored by Nike.  As I ran, I pondered some of the more interesting developments of late, including: how Mohammed is now the most popular name for newborn baby boys in England; how China now has the world’s fastest computer; and how Charlie Sheen’s compulsive whore-mongering and myriad drug-inspired arrests can be considered nothing short of impressive so long as he keeps his day job on Two and A Half Men.

Lizzi and I attended a wine dinner at a nice French restaurant in Tokyo Midtown the other night.  The event featured pre-phylloxera vines, which means they pre-date the attack of those pesky little bugs that wrought destruction over pretty much every single European vineyard in the early 1860s.  It was a delicious and educational night.  Amid all the smart wine talk, I was a bit preoccupied with knowing why – from an evolutionary perspective – the voracious louse found it necessary to insert venom into the vines as they fed from them, thus destroying their source of food.  But judging by the blank stares my inquiry received, I’m guessing this isn’t the type of stuff one is supposed to discuss at such events.  My misstep was compounded by some rather poor form when we made our exit.  As we politely bid everyone adieu, I felt compelled to tell someone whom I had just met – a culinary bigwig from Chicago, no less – to “be good”.  I have no idea why I said this.  And I have no idea why I said it again during our second round of goodbyes.  Something’s clearly wrong with me.  Here’s hoping he just assumed that I had a mild case of Tourette’s.

As I write this, the horribly hokey Mike Huckabee Show is playing in the background.  The camera just panned to the show’s sparsely populated studio audience, which can’t be any greater than thirty people.  I wonder what series of poor decisions would lead someone to be a member of that audience.  I fully expect to see Todd Margaret sitting there someday.

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Sunday in Singapore

October 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Having wrapped up another week of class, I’m left with a sandwich Sunday since I’ve got meetings in town on Monday and Tuesday.  These days are a welcome break in the routine, as they give me a day to relax, read, and blog about nothing in particular.

The elevators in my hotel are those fancy schmancy ones that have little television screens built into the panels above the buttons.  Playing on those screens this morning was a Charlie Rose interview with funnyman Zach Galifianakis.  I was tempted to ride the elevator up and down for 20 minutes to watch the entire chat but figured that would be poor form.  So instead I hustled to my room to watch the interview on the interwebs.  The clip was pretty good (you can watch it here) and it reminded me of three things.  One, Charlie Rose has a cool job and I dare say he’s pretty good at it.  Two, I always enjoy seeing comedians/actors who normally play outlandish characters exist for a brief moment as normal human beings.  And three, Seth Macfarlane had a great Tweet the other day where he wondered what lurks in the eerie black void behind Rose.  I wish someone would ask him about that backdrop and he would respond by staring at them in silence for an awkward period of time before turning around and disappearing into the blackness.

Speaking of watching stuff, I’ve got Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on as I type this and it might be his worst one yet.  His collection of guests this week left much to be desired:  Al Sharpton, John Legend, Markos Moulitsas (of Daily Kos fame), Dana Loesch (a radio host), and Dan Neil of the Wall Street Journal (to talk about electric cars).  The guests had nothing much to add and made mostly obvious or asinine comments (particularly in the case of Legend and Moulitsas).  And Maher’s show-ending “New Rules” monologue about Brett Favre was just weird.  It got off to a good start but quickly devolved into a weird self-hating diatribe about how white men are idiots who ruin everything.  The Favre “sexts” are certainly fodder for good fun but this was one big swing and a miss for Maher.

Moving on – Once the torrential downpours subsided (which occur with great frequency here), I decided to brave the crowds and roam Orchard Road.  The primary shopping area of Singapore, I’m convinced that each of the country’s five million residents pays a visit to Orchard over the weekend.  It might be the most annoyingly packed place on the planet, filled with hordes of window-shoppers and Filipino maids enjoying their day off (congregations similar to those seen in Hong Kong’s Central district on Sundays).  I wonder if the Singaporean government has mandated that patriotism equals one trip per week to the country’s magnificent mile equivalent.  In which case I’d say Singapore is a mighty patriotic place indeed.

I paid a visit to the local Borders bookstore to see if I could find Jonathan Franzen’s latest work, Freedom.  Though I’m not entirely sold on the guy, I’ve got a friend with impeccable taste who swears by him.  Plus, I saw him do a BBC interview the other day and he seemed pretty smart.  I like feeling smart, so reading him is probably a good thing.  And though I own an iPad – which allows for plenty of book downloads for the avid traveler – a Franzen work strikes me as one that needs to be owned in hard copy.  That way people who peruse my bookshelf at home will assume I’m one of the sharper tools in the shed.  It’s the literary equivalent of wearing glasses.

Interestingly, though, I detected not a whiff of Franzen at the store.  Given all the media hype, I figured he’d be prominently displayed among the “Staff Favorites” or “Bestsellers”.  Instead, he was nowhere to be found.  Not even when I visited the Fiction section and looked him up by name.  There were lots of books by Jodi Picoult but not a damn thing by Franzen.

One topic on prominent display, though, was Singapore.  I’ve heard from expat friends here that the Singaporeans are a rather proud people.  And a visit to a local bookstore does nothing to dispel that notion.  Indeed, a whole wall was dedicated to the city-state, with a host of works chronicling the country’s miraculous rise.  Titles like From Third World To First and The Singapore Story were all over the place.  But the one that stood out to me was Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew: How To Build A Nation.  There is so much inherently interesting about that title, particularly the notion that one could actually build a nation in modern times (which is pretty much what Lee Kuan Yew has done).  This resonated with me not only because it provided an awestruck moment of “Well, he would know”, but it also got me thinking about how more people should do that – and by that I mean they should found their own country.  As we know, there’s precedence.  And it appears there’s funding too.  This may or may not have stemmed from a brainstorm I shared with some B-school classmates.  And our latest brainstorm may or may not involve channeling L. Ron Hubbard and founding our own religion.  We don’t do small ideas at Booth.

 

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What’s Wrong With Holland?

October 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

First, we were treated to a steady stream of news over the past couple of years that more than a few of the country’s cannabis cafes and brothels were shutting down. Then their lovely brand of football went the way of Bruce Lee during their World Cup final loss to Spain (here’s to you, Nigel de Jong). And now we’ve received news that the Dutch have decided to frown upon the practice of free speech. Particularly worrisome is the fact that their politicians’ recent moves to silence one of their own, Geert Wilders, clearly undermines the democratic process. Even more disturbing is the fact that he’s on trial for comments he made about religion (Islam, in particular).

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of Dutch parliament who now lives in the U.S. , wrote an interesting piece in today’s WSJ about the unfortunate developments with Wilders. Side note: Ali has a special security detail thanks to death threats she received for taking her own stances against Islam while living in Holland.

Her piece cogently captures the absurdity of the charges against Wilders, laying bare the political motivations that derive from the Dutch need for “consensus” (clearly not a Wilders strong suit) as well as the growing importance of the Muslim electorate in Holland. What bothered me most, though, was her explanation of the European desire to silence debate on religion full stop. Citing the specific Dutch law that Wilders is accused of violating, which is claimed to be the national version of a broader European rule, Ali writes:

Article 137C of the penal code now states that anyone “who publicly, verbally or in writing or image, deliberately expresses himself in anyway insulting of a group of people because of their race, their religion or belief . . . will be punished with a prison sentence of at the most one year or a fine of third category.” It continues: “If the offense is committed by a person who makes it his profession or habit, or by two or more people in association, a prison sentence of at the most two years or a fine of fourth category will be imposed.”

That’s worrisome on several levels. But what really chaps my hide is the “anyway insulting” part. Basically, anyone who is in “anyway insulting” of a religion gets into trouble. How much more vague can one be in penning a law? And how does one determine what is insulting?

This gets to the heart of one of my primary gripes against religion: it can’t hold its own when it comes to a battle of wits. And when properly challenged, adherents get “insulted” and often hide behind the facade of “respect for one’s beliefs” to avoid any real clash of ideas. Or they simply freak out and decide to blow shit up. I often argue that religion should occupy the same philosophical space as one’s taste in music or political preference or support of a sports team. There exists in this world a marketplace of ideas in which debate should flow freely and openly. Instead, religion is treated with intellectual kid gloves to avoid offending the insecure, disillusioned hordes willing to sacrifice logic and rationality at the altar of hope and faith.

Admittedly, I know very little about Wilders. Indeed, he may well be a total psycho who is undeserving of national office. After all, his desire to ban the Koran and building of mosques strikes me as a touch too much. I’d prefer that religion be engaged in a more intellectual and philosophical manner rather than through brute force. What I do know, however, is that his being prosecuted for disagreeing with a particular religion is almost as ridiculous as needing to swear by one in order to secure public office in the U.S.

At the end of the day, people should be just as free to disbelieve as to believe, both from a societal as well as legal perspective. Here’s hoping we figure that out soon enough.

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Onward Christian Moguls

October 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The intersection of business and religion is a topic that has long fascinated me, and a friend’s recent note nudged me into some new brainstorms on the subject.  It’s way too early to offer anything interesting on the matter, but at least we were treated to a fun piece from Maureen Dowd this week that described her experience at one of those ridiculous Get Motivated! seminars:

But I stayed in the church of capitalism…the sports arena featured some weird counterprogramming: famous men who once were considered prospects for president, now buck-raking and giving a patina of legitimacy to carnival barkers pushing quick-cash schemes bathed in Biblical inspiration and patriotism.

Thousands of people mired in the new Age of Anxiety turned hopeful eyes to the parade…waiting for that one elusive diamond of advice that could change their lives.

…at Get Motivated!, the seminar organizers entice audience members to sign up for more seminars that, for a fee, will teach them the secrets of cashing in on stocks, real estate and the Internet.

I came away with one important new insight about getting rich quick: An easy way to do it is to dole out fortune-cookie maxims at get-rich-quick seminars.

 

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Of Hitch And Huff

September 29, 2010 By 1 Comment

Recent revelations concerning the alleged sexual indiscretions of Bishop Eddie Long elicited a standard response from me, one best described as being somewhere between moderately and highly amused.  Though one should hesitate in automatically assigning guilt in such situations, one could also be excused for assuming the worst given the recent track record of these men of cloth.

While I would love to wax philosophical about the depravity often found in men whose business involves the instillation of morals, I’ll instead defer to someone much more talented at wielding the poison pen.  Very lucky for us indeed, the incomparable Christopher Hitchens remains dutifully engaged at the keyboard.  Despite being in the midst of a battle with throat cancer, my man Hitch couldn’t be stopped from thrashing yet another fallen religious leader.  Eloquent as ever, he takes Long’s predicament as an opportunity to not only highlight the wonderful hypocrisy of the moment but to also ponder the role race may play in it all.  This from his latest Slate piece:

The easiest way to gain instant acceptance as a black “leader” these days is to shove the word Reverend in front of your name.  Or, if you are really greedy and ambitious, the word Bishop. Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia preaches that Bayard Rustin was a vile sinner who suffered from the curable “disease” of homosexuality. I have a rule of thumb for such clerics and have never known it to fail: Set your watch and sit back, and pretty soon they will be found sprawling lustily on the floor of the men’s room. It may be a bit early to claim the scalp of Eddie Long for this collection, but I doubt I shall have to withdraw…

Many other charlatans have benefited from the clerical racket, and the most notorious of them—Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart—have been white. But there is something especially horrible about the way in which the black pulpit gets a sort of free pass, almost as if white society has assured itself that black Americans just love them some preaching. In this fog of ethnic condescension, it is much easier for mountebanks and demagogues to get away with it.

Speaking of my favorite atheist reminds me of a recent article I saw on The Huffington Post.  I usually search the “Religion” tab of that website so I can giggle at the ridiculous titles that accompany most of its blog entries.  How can one not chuckle at the absurdity of leads like “When We Promise To Pray For A Friend, We Should Do It!” or “God’s Emotions: Why The Biblical God Is So Human” (er, maybe because God is a human invention?) or “Do Our Pets Go To Heaven? Metaphysics of Animal Souls and The Afterlife”.

The other day, though, I came across a headline that most definitely grabbed my attention.  In a piece entitled “Why Atheism Will Replace Religion”, biopsychologist Nigel Barber took a moment to remind everyone that smarter, more developed societies tend to shy away from belief in the supernatural.  But what I found most interesting was how he gave the analysis an interesting twist by couching it in sporting as well as market terms:

Moreover, sport psychologists find that spectatorship yields much the same kind of social, and spiritual, benefits as people obtain from church membership. Precisely the same argument can be made for other forms of entertainment with which spectators become deeply involved. Indeed, organized religion is striking back by trying to compete in popular media, such as televangelism and Christian rock and by hosting live secular entertainment in church.

The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and with government safety nets, and smaller families, there is less fear and uncertainty in daily life and hence less of a market for religion. At the same time many alternative products are being offered, such as psychotropic medicines and electronic entertainment that have fewer strings attached.

The market has spoken. It is predicting more empty pews but only in developed countries. Religious belief continues unabated among poor countries. Ironically, these are the places with the highest fertility so that the number of religious people on the planet will increase along with the population explosion.

In the end, though, as African countries develop, they will become as godless as Europe.
Ultimately, organized religion is on the way out. The only thing that could prevent this from happening would be a sharp decline in global standards of living. That would require some form of ecological collapse. Think a very large asteroid, a very nasty epidemic, extreme global warming, or derivatives traders rum amok.

As if we needed more reason to cheer for economic growth and development!

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There’s Gotta Be A Better Way

September 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you’re anything like me, you spend your downtime pondering life’s toughest questions.  Like, for example, whether it’s possible to eat spaghetti while wearing a burka.  Turns out the answer is sorta kinda.

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Stephen Hawking Lays The Smack Down

June 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

From his recent interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer:

What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God.  They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship.  When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.

There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

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WTF?

June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Turns out my favorite word is “the word” as well (insert shit-eating grin here).

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The Rap Guide To Evolution

May 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I read an interesting piece in the NY Times by evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson about a groundbreaking new show called The Rap Guide To Evolution.  Yes, an enterprising and creative dude named Baba Brinkman has “Snoopified” Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution with surprisingly effective results.  Check out the following two video clips to see for yourself.  Really cool stuff.

Performance, feedback, revision:

The Rationalist Anthem:

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Not Afraid

May 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Here’s a pretty simple rule that one should always follow:  One’s public persona must be remotely close to how they are in real life.  For example, David Vitter can’t run on a family values platform to finagle a Senate seat while spending his free time cavorting with prostitutes.  To be clear, I could care less whether someone enjoys the company of hired help, just don’t shape your public profile around the notion that you despise such behavior.  And you can’t be a co-founder of the massively conservative – and homophobic – Family Research Council and choose to spend your vacation in Europe with a male prostitute found on the website Rentboy.com.  Again, I could care less if someone is homosexual, so long as their day job isn’t comprised of discriminating against folks of that very persuasion.

I guess what I’m saying is you should practice what you preach.  But it’s actually more than that.  You see, what got me on to this rant was seeing a picture of Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) while perusing iTunes today (by the way, I downloaded the new Broken Social Scene and I approve).  There was Eminem sitting atop the best-selling singles list with his song Not Afraid, looking back at me with his typical menacing stare.  And I got to thinking – is he really so tough?  I mean, the guy’s appearance doesn’t rate highly on the intimidation scale.  And if we’re being honest, the dude’s physicality isn’t one that strikes fear in the hearts of men like a 50 Cent or Suge Knight.  So I did a little research on the Internet-s and discovered an interesting little tidbit about Mr. Mathers.

Here’s a related – and loaded – question: Who do you think would win in a fight between Eminem and Ben Stiller?  No weapons, no posses.  Just Eminem and Ben Stiller straight up.  We all know Stiller to be a rather diminutive, fun-loving jokester while Eminem likes to tell us how brutally hardcore he is.  Meanwhile, both men are 5′ 8″ (at least according to some spot research online).  And judging by Eminem’s physique, I’d venture to guess that he weighs no more than 160 pounds soaking wet, which leads me to believe that Stiller is stronger on a pound-for-pound basis (have you seen his guns in Tropical Thunder?).

So my vote is for Stiller – and I’m 100% serious.  And so I proclaim the following: I cannot take seriously any hardcore gangsta rapper who I’m fairly convinced would lose to Ben Stiller in a fight.  Same for you, Lil Wayne, who at 5’5″ is, in a word, lil (and sitting eye-to-eye with Woody Allen).  At 6′ 3″, Jay Z can rap away looking as tough as he wants, as can Flo Rida (6’3″) and The Game (6′ 4″).  But at a skinny 5′ 7″, Ludacris needs to tone it down.

By the way, this isn’t just a height issue.  For example, Timbaland is a pretty stout 5′ 7″ as is Nelly at 5′ 10″, so they get a pass.  There’s simply a balance that needs to be struck in order for one’s tough guy image to gain any sort of legitimacy.  And it’s not just a rap issue either, as my problems with such “perception mismatches” began as early as Scarface, where I simply couldn’t reconcile how a skinny, 5′ 6″ Al Pacino could manage to run roughshod over the Miami drug scene.

Let the record show that I’m not trying to belittle Ben Stiller, of whose work I’m a huge fan.  I used him as an example simply because he’s of fairly small stature and strikes most as one of the least threatening guys around.  And despite my distaste for his antics, I actually consider Eminem to be a wildly talented guy, and I agree with his own assessment that he spits some of the “illest lyrics” around.  It’s just that if I ever found myself stuck in a steel cage death match with Mr. Mathers, the words “not afraid” would best describe my state of mind.

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What Happened to Jimmy Johnson?

February 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I hold a special place in my heart for Jimmy Johnson.  Not only did the man lead my Cowboys to three Super Bowl titles, but he also has one of the finest helmet-head hairdos of all time.  Such sentiments explain why I am utterly destroyed by his latest efforts to capitalize on his one-time celebrity.

Exhibit A is his new turn as celebrity pitchman for Extenze, a “male enhancement” supplement.  Merely serving as a well-known endorser for such a product basically writes its own jokes, but I can’t tell whether I’m more horrified by his agreeing to do this or by the fact that he throws like a girl.  Check out the cheesy football toss at the end of his “pitch”.  That, my friend, is not the form of a football coaching legend.  I’m guessing he didn’t provide Troy Aikman with much in the way of mechanic QB guidance during his Cowboy years.

Exhibit B is his role as celebrity endorser of a trading scam – er, scheme – called BetterTrades.  Admittedly, I know very little about the actual specifics of this company and its product, but everything about this program strikes me as disingenuous and fake, right down to the casting.  For example, the advertisement posted below shows Erica Shaffer being introduced as a “financial reporter”.  In reality, she’s a lightly-employed actress seeking a paying gig, putting her in the same boat as Jimmy Johnson and his cohorts.  And I love that the founder’s name is Freddie Rick, a name that would’ve been well-suited for Ricky Bobby’s nemesis in Talladega Nights.  Not only does Mr. Rick have no formal training in the world of finance (he is a former Marine sniper, which is actually kinda cool), but he got his start with this business while teaching others about investing as a “love offering” at various churches.  That’s just perfect!  Of course a church crowd would make for good hunting when it comes to snake oil like this!  And it helps explain why a survey of his audience shows a crowd that could easily be mistaken for that at an average tent revival.

Anyone who knows anything about investing knows that consistent success in the market isn’t something that can be easily bottled and sold in mass market fashion.  Sure, it is possible to rather consistently profit from some forms of high frequency trading, but this isn’t something that is easily digestible for the average investor.  There are scores of PhD’s in the market fine-tuning complex trading algorithms geared specifically towards arbitraging away the inefficiencies that a system like BetterTrades is theoretically designed to exploit.  And these statistical arbitrageurs have billions of dollars to put to work, exponentially decreasing the odds that a 71-year old pensioner looking to double his $1000 in savings can gain any sort of meaningful edge by attending a seminar.

It is my strong suspicion that these guys are aggressive sellers of hope, not providers of true insight into wealth creation.  Just as religious leaders have done for centuries, they prey on insecurity, uncertainty, and ignorance to spread a nonsensical – and profit-seeking – message.  Indeed, a quick glance at the company’s management team reveals a squad much better geared towards fundraising/hoodwinking than complicated financial analysis.  And a quick Google search combining “BetterTrades” and “scam” or “fraud” will return a wealth of not-so-kind customer testimonials.

More obvious should be the notion that, were Mr. Rick to truly crack the profit-making code, motivated self-interest would suggest that he would want to monopolize that precious knowledge to make himself fabulously wealthy.  That is, if you know the secret sauce, why would you advertise that to the world?  Why not just use it exclusively to enrich yourself beyond imagination?  Or, you could devise some cockamamy scheme to milk your fellow churchgoers of millions of dollars for worthless advice and make yourself ridiculously wealthy that way.  Whatever works!

What a shame that Jimmy Johnson, a man who was once a childhood idol of mine, now finds himself in such dire financial straits that he must sacrifice his credibility on the altar of the slimy, quick-pay infomercial.

Filed Under: Finance, Religion, Sports Tagged With: , , ,

On The Topic Of Religion…

February 11, 2010 By 1 Comment

…I just want to remind everyone that I’m still in the anti camp.  To help solidify that point, please find below a handy – and highly sarcastic – roadmap to the world’s major religions, which is followed by a classic George Carlin tirade on the topic.

Filed Under: Religion

Ruminations Of A Commuter

December 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Just got back from a whirlwind trip to NYC and DC, which I’ll blog about in more detail later (hint: it will be entitled How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Phish).  For now, I’m going to share a few insights gleaned from my couple days stateside and from my time spent commuting.

  • Saw a couple movies on my flights, including Public Enemies and Funny People (I also watched Michael Moore’s Capitalism, which deserves its own post).  Public Enemies is about the infamous bank robber John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp) and his cat-and-mouse game with FBI agent Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale).  Considering the headliners and the plot, I had fairly high expectations for this film but was left disappointed with the final product.  While Depp had a decent turn as Dillinger, I thought Bale pretty much sucked as Purvis, and the directing felt strange to me.  Lots of pieces just didn’t seem to fit and there were too many stunted moments for what should’ve been an edge-of-your-seat ride.  I actually liked Marion Cotillard‘s turn as Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s love interest.  However, her French accent was way too overpowering for her to pull off a Wisconsin one, which is turning out to be one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to film and TV entertainment (see the FlashForward post below).  On the other hand, I thought Funny People was fantastic.  Initially, I had no interest in seeing this film, as I’ve had spotty success with past Judd Apatow productions (Knocked Up, Superbad, etc.).  This film, however, was great.  It moved beyond Apatow’s standard slapstick humor and actually went for a more visceral and serious treatment of comedy, told from the point of view of those who practice the art as a profession (i.e. stand-up comedians).  Adam Sandler plays the lead role as a successful but disenchanted comic whose close call with death sends him down various routes of self-exploration.  Taken along for the ride is a budding amateur played by the surprisingly convincing Seth Rogen.  The supporting cast includes Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Leslie Mann and Aubrey Plaza, each of whom is quite good.  In addition, Eric Bana has a great turn as Mann’s conflicted husband, and we are treated to an onslaught of pretty solid cameos from the likes of Eminem, Ray Romano, Sarah Silverman, and Norm Macdonald, among others.  This is a very good movie.  Though it runs a bit long, it is powered by some solid performances (especially Sandler, who revisits the depths he explored in Punch-Drunk Love) and the writing is equal parts convincing and humorous.  The jokes delivered onstage are fun and the ones delivered as part of the standard character dialogue are even better, especially since they are done in such nonchalant fashion.  See this movie.
  • Unless you’re willing to spend an outrageous amount of money, hotel rooms in NYC pretty much suck.  Small, stinky, and lacking in amenities would seem to be standard fare for anything less than $500 per night.  We stayed at the Hotel 373 near the Empire State Building and would certainly never stay there again.  Our room was ridiculously small, it smelled of mold, the TV was tiny and disproportional (making everyone on the tube appear short and fat), and I’m quite certain that the sheets are not cleaned on a regular basis (plus, housecleaning closes at 4 PM – WTF?!).
  • I took the Acela Express from New York’s Penn Station to DC’s Union Station on Saturday.  This was quite the pleasant experience, especially considering that it took less than three hours to make the trip.  My one complaint would be the lack of wifi access anywhere along the route, something I’m told Acela is soon to address.  Passing through places like Philadelphia, Delaware and Baltimore reminded me of how close together everything is on the eastern seaboard.  Unfortunately, I was also reminded of how substandard our transportation network is in the U.S.  In Japan, the bullet train concept is fully-developed and took hold long ago.  Meanwhile, our access to such transportation in the U.S. is limited to just the Boston-NYC-DC corridor, making me lament yet again the poor state of transportation infrastructure in our country.
  • Speaking of which, we flew out of Washington’s Dulles International Airport on Sunday.  This was my first visit to the airport and I must say that I was very impressed (Lizzi would disagree since we arrived separately for different flights and apparently had much different takeaways).  What I found was an experience colored by very little waiting times at check-in and security, clean corridors, plentiful shopping and restaurants, tons of pleasing, ambient light, and an ANA lounge that connected directly to my plane.  Dulles is now my favorite airport in the U.S.  Of course, this is kinda like winning the world’s tallest midget contest, but still.
  • Though I was only there for a short time, being in DC reminded me of how much I love that city.  I interned there for a summer during undergrad and fell in love with the history that oozes from the city’s pores.  And there’s something romantic about the notion that the city’s buildings are not allowed to exceed the height of the Capitol Building, making everything take on a more intimate feel.  Maybe I’m growing tired of the concrete jungle that is Tokyo?  Whatever the case, I can’t wait to get back to our nation’s capitol for a more involved visit.
  • I got reacquainted with two shows that I previously loved but had taken some time off from: Curb Your Enthusiasm and South Park.  Both shows are great.  Smart, witty, just downright brilliant on so many levels.  Anyone looking for some comedy gold should check out South Park’s Margaritaville episode from season thirteen.  Among the issues tackled are religion, profligacy, government ineptitude, racism, and the financial crisis.  This show has got some serious layers for anyone looking to explore them.  Very good stuff.
  • Among the things I read during the trip were Soccernomics (the soccer version of Freakonomics) and American Sketches (Walter Isaacson’s newest collection of profiles), to go along with a smattering of magazines.  I’ll write more about the books later.  The one magazine article that stood out was The Atlantic’s piece on the prosperity gospel and its possible role in the latest financial crisis.  The article asks the question, “Did Christiantiy Cause the Crash?“, a loaded question if ever there was one.  It’s of course tough to answer with any certainty, but the article at the very least shines an unflattering light on certain elements at play within Christianty and among its practitioners.
Filed Under: Movies, Religion, Travel, TV

Celestial Musings

November 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

091030-tech-galaxy-composite.hlarge

This is a panoramic view of the Milky Way, which was made possible by the splicing together of 3000 photos by an astronomer from Central Michigan University.  As a refresher of its magnificence, and how our little planet is but a speck of sand on the celestial beach, our galaxy has anywhere between 200 billion and 400 billion stars.  You think that’s a lot?  Well, it’s not.  Our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, is estimated to have one trillion stars.  To drive the point home further, consider that astronomers estimate that there are over 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe (indeed, there are limits to what our telescopes can see since some parts are likely too far away for the light to reach us).

Just stop for a second and get your head around those numbers.  Once you’ve done so, try to seriously consider whether we are special, whether anyone has a “plan” for any of us, and whether anything that happens on our tiny, inconsequential planet has anything to do with anything in the grand scheme.  I further urge you to consider how, given the law of large numbers, we could make fun of people who believe in the possibility of alien life while we simultaneously espouse the notion of a magical creator who cares about what we do with our lives and makes time to intervene when it’s deemed necessary.

Let’s put some teeth on this little brainstorm.  Going back to our neck of the woods, it is estimated that there are 100 billion planetary systems in the Milky Way (i.e. stars with planets orbiting them).  From this, astronomers have extrapolated that our universe contains roughly 10 trillion planetary systems in total.  Using our existence as a guide (one out of 100 billion), we can estimate that something like .00000000001% of planets contain life as we know it on Earth (of course, it stands to reason that we could be drastically underestimating this number since we don’t know much about 99.99% of the other planets in our own galaxy).  If we were to apply that number to the 10 trillion planetary systems across the universe, then it would seem a mathematical given that there are 100 planets in the universe that are Earth-like in nature.

This is why I love science and it’s just one of several blunt instruments I like to use whenever engaging in philosophical debate about the meaning of life or the existence of god.  I’ll take numbers and logic over man-made superstition any day.

Filed Under: Misc., Religion

Best. Idea. Ever.

October 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Religion

The (Mis)Valued Voter

September 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The Values Voter Summit 2009 took place this past week in DC.  Followers of this here blog know that my standard reaction to such an event resembles a cross between uncontrollable laughter and dry heaving, which would normally manifest itself in the form of a bitterly sarcastic post.  But rather than attempting my own take, I’ll leave it to Rachel Maddow who does a decent wrap of her own:

Two things.  First, why is it that any reference to monkeys is automatically racist?  Now that we have a black president, are all monkey jokes totally off limits?  If so, that’s a shame because there are some good monkey jokes out there.  Second, can you believe how Mike Schwartz, chief of staff of Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, went off on a totally ridiculous tangent where he decided to use young boys’ general intolerance of homosexuality as a weapon of mass distortion to turn them against pornography.  As a refresher, read the below and let it sit for a minute:

All pornography is homosexual pornography because it turns your sexual drive inwards.  Now think about that.  And if you…tell an eleven-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s gonna want to go out and get a copy of Playboy?  I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest.  That’s the last thing he wants.

His statements are so wonderfully obtuse that I don’t even know where to begin.  I’m speechless in my confusion that someone like this is given an audience.  Stupefied, I tell you!  Stupid dumb stupid!!!

Filed Under: Media, Misc., Politics, Religion

Kirk Cameron And The Origin Of Stupidity

September 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This is fantastic.  The below clip is Kirk Cameron (former child TV star turned evangelist) bemoaning the celebration of Darwin’s theory of evolution.  The video is brutal on so many levels (specifically, on the intellectual one), but it’s worth watching because….

…the retort by some enterprising (and pretty hot) vlogger makes for some fun YouTubing.

Filed Under: Religion
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