If Soccer is such a "world sport," then why are American Soccer fans watching American Football? Basketball? We consider Baseball to be a national pastime; that's the one where the guys take turns hitting a ball and run around the bases, with the gloves and the bats and the sunflower seeds. It's very unlike your what-do-you-call-it Football. Why don't we love soccer more?
It boils down to six reasons, the reasons that soccer will never catch on in the USA:

1) Low scores. 1-0 is a respectable score in soccer. Really? In Basketball, a 100-98 score is a good game. A 1-0 baseball game is boring. In American football, each touchdown is worth SIX points. SIX! A herculean performance by a pitcher for 0 points in baseball is akin to having a goalie with upwards of 50 saves, but that is an individual performance, and the pitcher's team, of course, can score as much as they want. Maybe as Americans we like individual sports stars that make lots of plays. Wilt Chamberlain. Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, Tiger Woods. Quantity, WITH quality. But mostly quantity. American Sports are like fast food. Quick. Easy. And yes, we have a problem with portion size.

2) Football has already been taken. No copying of names. We are exceptional, and taking the name for our sport is no bueno. Sure, maybe you named it football first, but that's not the point. You hear that South "America"?

3) Whiny babies get paid. Big time. This might be the exception to the American Fast Food Sports rule above. We allow a Peyton Manning to be a big whiny baby, but he's a Quarterback, and he's surrounded by giants that will protect him. No one will argue that Ronaldo is an incredible athlete.

4) No instant replay, no control of refs. Boys like rules. and the more rules, the better. In fact, once you have established those rules, you have to refine those rules and come up with a complicated set of enforcement techniques to make everyone adhere to the rules.

5) No biting. Seriously. Biting? This rule was initially not a part of this list. But suddenly we have to include it. I can tell you that if Kobe Bryant bit another forward every other game, the benches would clear and he would end up with no teeth. There is no question that he would be booed out of every stadium he played in - including his home team. Biting? I am left with the opinion that biting in sports must be a soccer thing.

6) You can't be fat and do this well. This is very-un-American. Maybe anti-american, in fact. From Football to Baseball to yes, even Bowling, we have heroes with heft. And if success can't come through being overweight in that sport, well that's just not attainable for most of us - hence, un-American.

For these six reasons, the sport they call football but we call soccer will never really "make it" in the USA. That is, unless they change the name, the format, forand allow you to score in some way just by kicking the ball without all that tiring running around.

What is up with our fascination with celebrities?

It's not enough that we idolize people who can act - even if it is really really well. We have to hold them in some sort of reverence - for that? He's not freaking madame curie.

Don't get me wrong. The passage of Harold Ramis/Philip Seymour Hoffman is lame. Whenever someone passes off this mortal coil too soon, it's awful. I feel for those that knew him. I do - BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY knew him. I did not. And so I hear that and go "aw."

But dare I say it --- People die every day. Some of whom I actually know.

Is our desire to be a part of a shared consciousness so great that we are willing to play out our emotions when someone we never met but saw in a movie once dies? If this is the future, woe be to that. How much greater should our horror be when someone we actually know dies?

And what of the other list of important people who died today?
A soldier in Afghanistan
A Pregnant lady who was hit by a car
An uncle we have fond memories for

Why do we revere Ramos and the like - who did neat things and had a horrible disease, or died because they snorted too much, shot up with too much, were so misunderstood, passed away too soon but were famous, or semi-famous, or about to be famous? Is their tragedy so much greater than any of a thousand more who deserve our sympathy but get nothing?

And to this I say "harumph."

Too soon?

A new study finds that trolls are often machiavellian sadists. Well no kidding. Tell me something I don't know today.

Trolls are yesterdays news, though they will be making news for a looooong time, mostly because they are either trolling to inspire others to follow them(hello terrible person who needs people to follow them more than they need actual attention from real people), or because they actually believe it(hello even more terrible person who actually believes what they say).

A study that says that trolls are terrible is like a a study that finds that criminals can be actually quite mean at times, or the use of water can make things wet.

And to be fair, we don't really understand trolls. I know I'm gullible. It seems like they might have a new idea there, or something viable. I actually had someone accuse me of trolling my own Facebook page. I mean really, like wait what? My page? How can I troll it? Because I disagree with something doesn't make me a troll. OR DOES IT.

Trolls are yesterdays news - grotesque memories of a time in which the internet was young and privacy was still attainable. We'll probably lose that at some point. What does the future hold for new and awful ways we can embarrass ourselves and take others down with us? Trolls are the snake-oil salesmen of today, the con-men who lure you in with the idea that their ideas might be interesting, cutting edge, but who are really just looking to make a buck.

If this is Satan's Spiritual Structure, you have to admit pretty serious progress by the big guy in red over the last couple decades. 

Can we stop with all the "bullying" stuff? And I don't mean stop bullying. I mean stop insisting everyone stop bullying? I don't know where you grew up, dear reader, but where I'm from there were assholes. These people either grew up and earned their lesson, or remained assholes. I wasn't protected from them. It sucked. I was a scrawny, quiet kid. But I learned an important lesson from them: there are people in the world who are dicks.

If we remove this important lesson, are we preparing our children any better for the future? If we shelter our kids from the "rain" of life, will they grow up thinking they don't need an umbrella?

Christians have a saying: "When life is difficult, don't pray for a lighter load. Pray for a stronger back." It's well conceived. The answer may not be to insist that life for your children conform to your reality. Instead, let's prepare each other to get through life's difficulties. When we prepare our children by helping them have high self-esteem, we're doing a wonderful thing. But when that high self-esteem has a basis in sailing through life without difficulty, we're doing nothing more than preparing our children to be given a giant wedgie by life later rather than sooner. 

I studied theater history in college, and I remember that practically every great early actor came from unbelievable adversity. In fact, it seemed to be a prerequisite for awhile that to be a great actor you had to have your ass kicked early in life, and then those experiences(presumably) led you to greatness. I remember thinking - "wow, maybe my life hasn't been hard enough for me to be a great actor..."

And of course that's silly. Great actors - and great people - can come from any socioeconomic level, from orphans to opulence. Isn't it interesting, though, how child stars tend to fall- and fall hard - later in life? Could it be that they had it "too easy?" Perhaps they needed a swirly.

A variety, a richness, a diversity of experience that includes the unexpected, the shocking, the awful, and the sad, is what constitutes life. When we insist that everyone be nice in youth, we're removing life's difficulty from their experience and falsely presenting life as an easy walk through a flower-strewn forest path. When we teach our kids happy-happy-joy-joy, we're not preparing them for the random "I-jacked-up-my-truck-y'all" douchebag who will flip them off in an intersection for no apparent reason. We're not preparing them for the random jackass in a bar, or the meth-addled toothless trainwreck who asks them for money "for food, totally." We're not preparing them for the power company accidentally shutting off their power due to a mix-up, for getting laid off, or for a dog that runs at them suddenly

We're not preparing our children for a job market where they might be one of 50 applicants for any given position, let alone the punk who yells "faggot!", or worse, driving by - just because. Because some people are just dicks.

Life isn't a combat situation, but adversity is a large part of it. I'm not suggesting we abuse our children, or let them be abused to prepare for later adversity. Of course we would never sit idly by and let our children be attacked. But can't a tiny bit of difficulty be a good inoculation for the adversity they'll experience later?

With apologies to Bill Maher

New rule: if you don’t understand the difference between the federal budget deficit and the national debt, you are not allowed to have a checking account or a credit card. Look, Daddy left 5 years ago with the Corvette he put on a credit card, and he also left mommy to take care of us kids AND pay for that car every month. Does that help explain it?

Republicans love to parade the ballooning debt in front of us in graph memes as a dramatic statement of Obama’s failure, rather than placing the responsibility on the guy who financed the wars – er, Corvette – in the first place. 

Democrats, for their part, aren’t helping. The Corvette is down the road. And we have to pay for it. Whining about Daddy, in the end, doesn’t help, but neither does the Democrats’ latest strategy: praising Obama in a counter-meme with a graph about how the debt is going down. That’s great. We’re paying our bills and we’re still not solvent. We have too much credit card debt and we're still using our credit card for groceries, but we’re making the minimum payment every month. Super. *Golf clap*

Here's the real problem: this is one of those nuanced issues that Americans aren’t grasping because both parties are stomping around with their pet graph as proof positive that they are right, rather than looking at the larger issue: our budget sucks and the process of making it is a joke. Until we are able to see through this crapstorm, we will continue to be baffled by the bull our elected officials throw at us, claiming they are right and the other side is wrong. 

We love Daddy and we love Mommy, but let’s face it, in this analogy, they’re not just spending our inheritance to buy a car they can’t afford – they are spending our ACTUAL MONEY. 

Personification is IN. 

At least for commercials. The AFLAC duck, Geico Gecko, Joe Camel, the Cheetohs Cheetah, Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, Golden Crisps Bear, Honey Smacks Frog, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, Trix Rabbit, Serta Sheep, Kraft Macaroni's Cheeseasaurus Rex, The Nesquick Bunny, Snuggle Bear, Charlie the Tuna. And who could forget the Tootsie Roll Pops Owl. There are probably a bazillion others, and I'm not exaggerating.

Those are just the ANIMALS. Nevermind the creepiness of Fruit-of-the-Loom Fruit in your underwear or the at-risk-for-assault M&M characters(date rape is so cute when it's chocolate).

Still. STILL. Nothing seems so eyebrow-raising as the latest Geico pig commercial. Apparently the little British Gecko wasn't cutting it, so now we're to pigs. In this commercial, we have a pig playing with his iPhone(cute) while a woman suggests they fool around.

It has come to this, Dumbericans. This. Where this happens and we chuckle. And then realize what we chuckled at and we take a shower.

I don't really care that GoDaddy's superbowl commercial has an obligatory Danica Patrick appearance and "flips the script" by having a hot blonde frenching a well, with all due respect let's say the guy is unattractive. It's a nasty lil commercial bit of shock jockeying, it's memorable in a "why-would-I-do-business-with-a-company-that's-doing this-without-Danica-Patrick" kinda way. I get it. We're supposed to remember it, think "ewwwwww!" but GoDaddy is in our minds. Howard Stern, thanks for this.

That isn't the intention of the Geico commercial. The main story is the pig's obliviousness, the cute Fruit Ninjas reference at the end; but it's punctuated with a supposed-to-be-clever bit about a woman who apparently wants to have sex with a pig.

• Were the writers trying to make the woman look desperate? Is a woman hoping to get some from a literal pig somehow entertaining?
  
• Did the marketing team thing pig sex would be a funny thing to play with conceptually?
  
• Was a woman trying to get it on with a pig THAT MUCH FUNNIER than a man? Because you know THAT was a conscious decision.
  

Anyway, I remember it, fo sho, and I'll remember that the marketing team at GEICO is a bit disturbed. That's what I'm looking for in my next auto insurance policy - a team of freaks behind it. 

Way to hit your target market.

Overall, America has an overalls problem.

Every day, overalls are talked about in the media. The media would have us believe that people are wearing overalls too much and that overalls are wreaking destruction on our country. We are bombarded with images of people in overalls. The horrible damage overalls cause to our country is obvious to anyone paying attention. It’s time we told the truth about overalls and proposed overalls control legislation in our country.

Overalls ownership has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Studies show that Americans continue to kill fashion with overalls more frequently than the next 10 civilized countries combined. We would expect overalls in Mexico, or in Guatemala – or even in Switzerland, where overalls are plentiful but very tightly regulated. Sure, Switzerland has similar clothing restrictions, but they also have mandatory fashion training and limit the number and type of overalls per household. Despite the mandatory training, they also have two-thirds of the number of overalls we have in the USA. 

The Swiss also have the sense to never wear overalls in public. That’s really an important point.

For the really civilized countries, overalls are banned from the general population. As a result, overalls are rarely, if ever, seen. The damage caused by overalls decreases. Can you imagine wearing overalls in the British House of Parliament? On the runway in Paris? It’s preposterous to even think of a single reason overalls would exist in these countries, so they have proceeded with strict overalls regulations despite the supposed lack of freedoms it entails.

(Critics of the international overalls violence statistics counter with the claim that in countries like the UK, “overall” violence has increased despite the prohibition of overalls. It’s an absurd claim, and please note the deceptive use of the word “overall” instead of “overalls.” This kind of misleading with statistics is a common tactic, but it does little to further the debate.)

In the United States, overalls are a “throwback,” aren’t they? In the early days of our country, overalls were important, even necessary. We did a lot more pig farming back then. And we had less fashion shows.

This is America, consarnit. Of course we have the right to wear overalls. You have the right to smell like horse manure anywhere you want to. But it offends my nose, and they are horrible to look upon. if your overalls-wearing happens outside of sport-mucking the pig pen, do you still have the right to wear overalls? Do we still want people out there destroying decorum in malls, theaters, and even in schools?

Overalls “truthers” go too far. They suggest overalls are not a problem at all, or that people criminally wearing overalls are “staged” by anti-overall activists. This is a despicable and horrifying strategy, a clear denial of reality – and an additional reason overalls regulations must be imposed and strictly enforced. After all, if we live in a country where a segment of the population is capable of denying the truth at this level, do we deserve to have our right to wear overalls?

Some say it’s the type of overalls, and that we should limit the types of overalls available on the market. The question isn’t really about the type of overalls, is it? Do we care if you are wearing overalls with six pockets or thirty? If you are wearing overalls in public, the damage is already done. When it comes to overalls, ONE PAIR IS TOO MANY.

In today’s America, there is really no good reason for overalls. Sure, we protect our right to wear overalls, and some flawed logicians go so far to say that overalls can protect us from the mud and muck better than other types of clothing. The more paranoid among us say that fascist dictators throughout history have banned overalls, and therefore subdued their populace. Please. If Obama’s America/ some future fascist dictator wants to take your overalls “over your dead body,” then get ready to have a dead body. They will get your overalls, using overwhelming force if necessary, and your puny pair of overalls will not stop them. You’ll be dead  - and wearing overalls. Is that really how you want to go out?

If the job is really mucky and dirty, no amount of overalls is going to protect you from getting filthy. I guess what I’m saying is for those conspiracy theorists that believe that some fantasy police state of nature in the future might exist and come after your overalls, restricting your right to protect yourself from mud and dirt, give it a rest. Your puny overalls are never enough for nature’s greatest drone attack: an entire pen of pig crap.

This is America, and we vigorously protect our personal rights. The problem is that overalls are very difficult to pull off. Most of the stories we hear of in the news, for instance, are about people who lacked any kind of fashion sense, indiscriminately purchased overalls and then wore them everywhere, without regard to decorum, absolutely killing fashion.

As the saying goes: your freedoms end where my sense of fashion begins.

Do overalls matter so much to us? Do we cling to our banjos and our poor dental hygiene, our obesity and our right to marry our cousins so much that we must defend our right to something so inane as overalls? Is there a place for overalls in a civilized society? Do they serve any real purpose outside of an imagined threat of future overall terrorism?

Pro-Overalls activists would have you believe that the solution is more overalls. Yes, it IS counterintuitive, isn’t it? It’s as if their love for overalls is so blind that they insist that they must kill ALL sense of propriety. What’s most odd about this is that they can’t seem to see the perversion of the argument. “Overalls are just an article of clothing,” they say. “Just because someone wears them inappropriately doesn’t make overalls bad.”

People. Is there really a “good” way to wear overalls?

Obviously I'm on one side of the overalls-control issue. But I welcome the opposing viewpoint. Will you be the one to articulate it?

Let’s continue the debate on overalls, by all means. But let’s avoid knee-jerk reactions that equate the wearing of overalls to some hallowed and unassailable human right. Remember, our forefathers wore dickeys and wigs. They had wooden teeth. Do we really want to take fashion advice from men who wore breeches, periwigs, and stockings? Fashion was far different in their time. It’s difficult to even say this, but it’s probably true: every one of our founding fathers would have been laughed off of project runway.

And that, well, that is about as un-American as it gets.

Author’s note. This is not meant to belittle violence or minimize the subject in any way. This is a serious issue. If you are on the other side of the issue, I welcome your reasoned opinion, and in many cases I agree, despite some of my satirical points in this post. The intention is that both sides should be able to find space in this analogy, and perhaps it will also allow us to get past veiled threats and intimidation. After all, no one likes a discussion with a pair of overalls held to their head, or even with the threat of overalls violence.

The Princess Bride and Government Inaction

In the classic 1987 movie The Princess Bride, the main character Wesley, as “The Dread Pirate Roberts,” chases Vizzini and Fezzik up the “Cliff’s of Insanity.” With all this talk of fiscal cliff, it’s natural to compare the two.

Actually, the comparison fits better than you might think. The cliffs are dubbed “The Cliffs of Insanity,” replacing the descriptor “fiscal” in our modern kidnapping of the budget –er, Buttercup-  of the United States of Florin, er, America.

It really is insanity, isn’t it? Our elected officials are spending December jousting over a budget crisis they created, all the while insisting that the other side is intractable. It’s like our country has somehow granted two children the right to “defer” their argument on the piggy bank’s contents until December, but they’ve been able to spend money all year. Fiscal? Not very. Henceforth, everywhere the word “fiscal” or “budget” appears, it shall be replaced by the word “insanity,” for crazy it is. By royal decree I make it so, like Prince Humperdink’s decree to marry Princess Buttercup.

The Players and their roles:

John Boehner: shall play the slow but gentle giant Fezzik. Boehner proposed a plan that cuts Medicare and Medicaid, healthcare, and social programs. “What we're putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House and I would hope that they would respond in a timely and responsible way.” I really wish he had added “That’s all I have to say.” That would have been perfect. As speaker, Boehner is taking the issue entirely upon his shoulders, and he has the strength of the Republican party to do it. Unfortunately, the proposal of cutting needed programs is the equivalent of dirt dumb. Fezzik does his job as “heavy” for the plotting and scheming by the privileged in the story, but his position is flatly wrong, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know it. Boehner, unlike the loveable Fezzik, seems to do it willingly.

Let’s not forget the six-fingered man’s part in all of this. Count Rugen, portrayed in our merry play by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, leads with sarcasm, laughing as Geithner’s proposal is outlined. Of course, he says he meant “no offense.” Isn’t it a bit disingenuous to burst into laughter when someone is speaking, and then claim that you meant no offense? Mitch McConnell is practically channeling Christopher guest, the actor who plays the sneering Count Rugen.

Another odd parallel: Count Rugen made a mortal enemy in Inigo Montoya by cheating Inigo’s father of the money he promised him. We might consider our future generations in casting Inigo, but this is a play, so we’ll have to cast someone relevant to today.

For Inigo Montoya, the Spanish Swordsman extraordinaire himself, we cast two characters: Timothy Geitner and Jay Carney. They’ve alternated their fencing duties so far, as Inigo himself alternated right and left hands. Geithner outlined the proposal, beginning the fight with McConnell, and Carney continued the fight in his press conferences. Boehner said his plan was “credible.” Carney might well say “Credible? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

Guilder and Florin, the nations involved in the plot Prince Humperdink arranges, the reasons for all the drama herein, are words for former dutch currency, now the Euro. Seriously? Yep. It’s about the Benjamins, even in the world of The Princess Bride. Well, the Dutch Benjamins. I suppose that makes it all about the “Lars”, or the “Hans,” perhaps.

Barack Obama plays the brilliant Vizzini. I know, this one hurts a bit, but it’s just a play so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief. Vizzini is all smarts, all knowledge, but he outsmarts himself. He thinks too much. He doubles back on himself, and in the end, fails to realize that the person he’s outwitting, the trap he’s sprung, has been set by the person he’s arguing with. Congress created this Cliff, it’s a trap they’ve built up an immunity too, taking it in tiny doses for years, like iocane powder. The fact that Obama has to play this game is a plot device designed to move the story along in an interesting way, nothing more. It is “a play told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We like Vizzini. We’d like to play chess with Vizzini, though he would certainly win. But despite his delusions and his title as gang leader, he is little more than a pawn in a great game.

Miracle Max: Jack Lew, White House Chief of Staff. Lew won’t be the headliner in negotiations, but he will be present, and he’s reportedly a hardliner against cuts to entitlement programs. We’ll need Republicans to swallow that giant pill. This isn’t “true love,” Max. You can be rough about it. Though it’s a “bit” part, let’s face it, nothing gets fixed without Miracle Max.

Who will save us from the plotting of the arrogant Prince Humperdink and his minions? Who will be our Wesley?

It’s clear that Wesley, our hero, is played by us, the American people. It’s clear that without our intervention, the budget will be kidnapped every year and taken, unimpeded, up the Cliffs of Insanity. Without our efforts to require that the budget be worked out properly, without our insistence that the social safety net, Medicare and Medicaid, be brought back to our country safely, we could be overpowered and continually subjected to this budgetary torture, with years removed from our American lives by the Albino and Count Rugen’s cruelty. The American people must demand that our vital social programs be kept intact. Without this action, our government will continue to scheme against us, devising outlandish fool’s errands, up to and including inventing scapegoats for war. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

We, us, Westley, must climb the Cliffs, sleeper hold Fezzik, out-fence Inigo, and out-wit Vizzini. Only then will we finally hold Buttercup in our arms again.

AS YOU WISH, America.

Regardless, let’s hope these guys can accomplish something before the end of the year. If there is good news, it is that tax cuts will automatically expire. Even inaction is action, as the budget Buttercup will be returned to America/Florin without the expense, without making such a drama about it.

And without all that yucky kissing.

I keep hearing in conservative anti-gun control circles this ultimatum:
"The government can have my guns when they pry them from my cold, dead hands."

Mkay.

Let's go over what you just said.

You just said that the government, which is apparently coming after you and using extreme force to remove deadly weapons from your person, will have to kill you to get them.

Do you think that threat will stop them? Or might it actually hasten their desire to remove the gun?

Do you think that will stop the government you obviously hate? In your paranoid delusion, where the government of the United States is beating down doors to remove weapons of mass murder(which in your mind must include plastic forks, since they are just a 'tool'), do you think your lone gunman standoff will stop them from escalating?

Do you think your posturing makes the evil, corporate controlled government worried that you might be a bad person and oh we should never mess with that individual?

What if your worst fears are realized and the government decides to come after your guns?

What then? You barricade yourself in. They knock your door down. You start firing. They retreat. They tear gas you. You have a mask, and laugh as the smoke rolls through your house, firing at the next cops dumb enough to come in the door. They retreat again.

With a "nice" government, the best you can hope for is a nice long standoff ending with your arrest or death. With the meany mean government in your reality, however - a reality, mind you, where the police arm themselves against the rest of the law-abiding population - why wouldn't they just set your house on fire and wait an hour or two?

What makes you think your impotent standoff, your "cold dead hands" argument, is worth a flying flap to anyone in the government, police, or military - except as proof of your insanity? If there is a test for sanity, you just failed it.

If you utter the words "cold dead hands," I would suggest to the world - and Dumberica - that you may not be the kind of person who should own a gun. The ideology behind that phrase conceals an extremism that has little place in any law-abiding society.

This is not a Quentin Tarantino film. This is not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. This is not you nobly holding to your ideals and fighting off  your oppressors. This is you being a Jackass and threatening to hold your own personal armed revolution against a government that doesn't exist - and if it did, would crush you anyway.

200 years ago, when the 2nd amendment was passed, we were fresh off of revolution. We were, understandably, worried that people needed a weapon against a potentially dangerous government. The most powerful, fastest shooting gun you could own was a musket. A MUSKET. The rate of fire was roughly 4 shots per minute, max, and the interim was spent re-loading, not looking for the next victim. Seemed like a good idea that the American people should have one of those, so our "Minutemen" could be called up again if necessary.

I'm not going to argue against all gun ownership, but hasn't the world changed a tiny bit?

Stop using the "cold dead hands" argument. It's the pro-gun equivalent of the nuclear solution. You are essentially saying that if our government passed laws making your weapon illegal that you would shoot them. Is there another country in the world - another civilized, non-extremist country - where that statement would be tolerated? Is there another country in the world where such a comment wouldn't lead to some sort of eyebrow-raising?

Worst of all, understand this: When you say the government can take your weapon when they pry it from your cold, dead, hands, you are daring them to.

What happens when they say, "Okay"?