We all live in echo-chambers of our own choosing, whether we're conservative, liberal, or anything in between. The news we get is the news we want, blowhard commentators and link curators delivering to each of us tuning-in/logging-on just the perfect slant we're looking for. If not, we’ll go somewhere else. So, if you're someone whose media intake consists of science-based facts and NPR, you tend to forget a good portion of the country is fucking nuts. For instance, if you would have told me last week that one in four Americans are unaware the Earth revolves around the Sun, and fewer than half believe in evolution, I would've called bullshit. I personally know absolutely zero people—save my nearly two-month-old nephew—who do not know these facts, so I'd find fault in the polling technique. But just last week, I found myself at dive bar in Bakersfield, CA, where I spent two Blue Moons trying to talk a middle-aged white dude out of believing that Obama's a Muslim. Which is to say: This poll checks out.
Remember that kid in grade school who kept to himself, who wasn't in the “cool” crowd and he wasn’t picked on? He was just kind of there? Seemed like a nice enough chap, but no one had an opinion really either way. Until that day he invited you to his house and showed off his various attempts at making bombs, the scat porn he stole from the video store, and his BB gun marksmanship on the neighborhood cat. And after that, you started to keep an extra eye on him? Well, that's kind of the metamorphosis that's taken place regarding Canada over the past five years. No one used to pay them much mind. They were just kind of there. But then they started rioting over Lord Stanley's Cup, and then the whole hilarious Rob Ford thing went/is still going down, and now it’s been revealed that they're dumping containers full of garbage on the Philippines. So, it’s time to think about them a little differently. Maybe Canadians aren't the laid back, beer-guzzling, chummy, folk we thought. Maybe, they’re really super-menacing, and have just been keeping that side away from the rest of us.
There's plenty of problems with the cult of youth that currently dominates every form of media, but the biggest one is simply the boredom that comes with it. Young people are boring. Hell, middle-aged people are too. The only really interesting people out there are the 80-plus-ers—the ones still coherent, at least—because they just don't give a shit. You know how after you put in your two weeks at a job and are just counting down the days left? That's them all the time. Take 82-year-old venture capitalist Tom Perkins. A few weeks ago, he said the American rich have it as bad as the Jews in Germany during WWII. (Now, that’s bold.) And this past week he's back at it, claiming that millionaires should get way more votes than the sullied non-millionaire masses. Dude is on a roll of hilarious cranky coot insanity, essentially becoming the Westboro Baptist Church of capitalism. Enjoy it while you can, folks. Simple math dictates this ride's coming to an end sooner than later.
Here's a worthwhile axiom to print out and stick in a bunch of fortune cookies or bumper stickers or something: One person's religion is not excuse enough to force someone else's action. Pretty basic stuff, seeing as everyone—even those who belong to the same religious tribe—has different belief systems. Governing by religious sensibilities makes about as much sense as writing laws dictated by a three-year-old. The publisher, however, doesn't agree. Last week, after getting a complaint from a fringe right-wing group that one of their publications (The Hindus, Wendy Doniger's alternative history of Hinduism) “hurt the religious feelings of millions of Hindus,” they thought it was right to consent to the wishes of madmen and remove the book from Indian shelves. This is not the correct response. Maybe they go and read something else instead?
Again and again in this space I've detailed a handful of reasons why, for the love of all that is holy, us humans should stay out of the goddamn oceans. Sometimes it’s because giant sharks live longer than previously thought, sometimes it’s because freakishly huge jellyfish are now all the rage in Tasmania, sometimes it’s because 43-foot-long squid are actual things that exist out there. This week, the reason to cancel that cruise is the fact that something called "rogue waves" exist. What's a rogue wave? Oh, just a massive wave that just fucking comes out of nowhere and wrecks havoc on everything in its wake. One of those ran into a British cruise ship last week, broke through a window, and ended up killing a guy. Once again: The ocean's not for us, people.
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