What's the Deal With Boeing's Dreamliner?

Flying has become a pain in the ass. I remember being excited to fly when I was younger. Airports were this amazing portal that transported you to new and exotic places, the seats were comfortable, the stewardesses were pleasant, you were provided meals on most flights, and delays/issues didn’t feel as inevitable. Now they've done everything in their power to jam as many seats as possible in the cabins (including diminishing the size of bathrooms), the food is a bag of chips the size of a quarter, the stewardesses are simply assholes, airports in general have cut back on food options, all of which force you to deal with one line after another, and flight delays and cancellations are expected.  The fact that flying costs have actually increased while positive consumer experiences have decreased has given this form of transportation a negative stigma. Boeing is hoping to change that. Well, maybe not entirely. 

The 787 Dreamliner doesn’t provide the most space, I’m sure the airport will remain the same overcrowded unorganized hub that it has always been, the stewardesses will probably still be assholes, no planes are immune to delays and cancellations, and the food might still be shit. Aesthetically though, it’s a stunner. It has enhanced the visual experience for the rider with an interior that has taken notes from Virgin Air with a vibrant, club-like theme. The windows adjust dimness instead of needing shades and it does a great job of accommodating someone with physical or visual disabilities, but that’s not why this airliner is gaining prestige. The biggest changes are related to the technical make-up. 

The 787 is the first major airliner to use composite material for its frame. It’s the first production airliner with a fuselage assembled with a one-piece composite barrel which eliminates 1500 aluminum sheets and around 45000 fasteners; it has two new types of efficient engines, and it's extremely aerodynamic. I’m not a engineer so I don’t really know what the fuck all of that

technically means but, from what I gather, this means it’s efficient as shit. Plus, Rolls-Royce developed one of the engines so you know this thing is high class. Finally, it has an electric system that can detect maintenance needs, but they must have finally turned it off.

The concept began around 2003 and after 10 years the Dreamliner, loaded with excited passengers, finally took flight this weekend for the first time since it was sidelined three months ago due to safety issues. The biggest issues revolved around faulty batteries that melted on two of the planes. Thank you airplane analysis technology. Apparently lithium-ion batteries love catching on fire. 

So what does this hyped plane mean to us wary travelers? Not much, although hopefully the concept will decrease the costs of air travel due to not needing more fuel. More importantly, while this is not the greatest thing since porn, it’s biggest contribution hasn’t been mentioned. It reveals that in an age of computer entrepreneurs, entertainment moguls - things that lack real substance - people are still out there building and inventing legitimate products that will continue to evolve and really help mankind. It’s good to see companies continuing to push the boundaries and help enhance infrastructure, which is why the US used to flourish. Sure there were mistakes endured and money lost, but these are minor prices to pay when developing concepts that are revolutionary.

- Kyle

Untamed Baja - 2 Dudes, Surfboards, Cameras and a Dream

photo snagged from Nat Geo.com

Justin DeShields won a Young Explorer Grant from Nat Geo for basically being badass. Everybody, especially up in the Tetons where I'm currently hanging my hat, is always talking about the great hikers of epic mountain peaks. It's the in thing to do, bagging peaks. Everest has never been more popular (hell, they even had a Family Guy Episode about it) and nearly all impressive U.S. peaks are regularly crawling with amateur mountaineers, like admittedly, me. So it takes some balls to buck the trend and propose a couple hundred surf-centric hike south along the coast. And not just any coast, along the coast of Mexico, where the possibility of narco-related death or scorpion sting pain is very real. I mean sure, once you get on foot beyond the villages and cities you're probably okay but then you gotta deal with the basic act of survival in that Baja heat.

On a personal note, every time I've gone to Baja, and that was quite a regular occasion in my San Diego years, I or somebody from my group has been hassled by bandits, federales, or both (and really what's the difference anyway?). You don't gotta worry about crazy drug gangsters possibly appearing with AK's to mow you down while summitting K2, that's for sure.

So anyway, right now Nat Geo Young Explorer Grantee Justin DeShields and his buddy Bryan Morales are in the middle of an epic hike down to the tip of Baja to be followed by a stand up paddle across the sea of Cortez and beyond.

Check out their site to keep up with where they're currently exploring and get inspired by the fact that, hell, even in North America along the Pacific there are still unexplored lands.

And, hell, it's the soul of Spring right now. Get out and do something, goddammit.

Happy Friday.

- Ryan

Trains, Planes, and Buses...-Public Transportation at its Best and Worst

As someone who travels home frequently from New York to Baltimore for weddings, holidays, engagement parties, and sporting events, I have extensive experience with different modes of public transportation. I want to first start out by stating that public transportation is generally crap. Between the lack of communication and intangible forces that can affect buses (traffic or a blown tire), a train system with prices that far exceed anything that abides by the laws of human decency, and air travel that continues to feel like torture, there are really no decent options. You can travel by water but from what I can tell by Royal Caribbean it’s not much better. Plus, I tend to get sea sick quickly. I have taken three different types of buses, the train, and flown. While this article revolves around my travels between NYC and Baltimore, this should serve as a general basis when considering your travel options.

Now, individuals have their own reasons to take a specific mode of transportation which I believe falls under one of the three C’s (costs, convenience, comfort), so I started off ranking each option based just specifically on these categories. I then followed it up with my personal opinion as each category and form of transportation is not weighted. 

Convenience

1.       Amtrak
2.       Bolt bus
3.       Mega Bus
4.       Chinatown Bus
5.       Flights

Costs

1.       Chinatown bus
2.       Megabus
3.       Boltbus
4.       Amtrak
5.       Flights

Comfort

1.       Amtrak
2.       Boltbus
3.       Flights
4.       Megabus
5.       Chinatown bus

 Overview

1. BoltBus

The Boltbus is without a doubt the best option. It's one of the most cost-effective and while the Amtrak is more comfortable and convenient, the additional $100 it costs to travel each way is not worth the additional 30 minutes to 1 hour it takes to travel. The leather seats are comfortable and certainly provide more room than airplanes and the other bus options. While the Mega and the Greyhound are cheaper, the difference in cost does not compare to the comfortability and punctuality of the Bolt. They also seem to be more organized than the other bus options as the staff are more communicative and you get called by letter group, similar to flights.

2. The Megabus

It's another cheap option and slightly less expensive than the Bolt, but it has never arrived on-time and I have taken it at least 20 times. It’s a crapshoot. While all the buses have the propensity to arrive late due to traffic, especially during the summer, it is guaranteed Mega will be late. It’s even worst than Chinatown bus with delays and as uncomfortable as a yuppie in SpaHa. I mean, they seem to have added way too many seats which creates an atmosphere too intimate for strangers. The seats themselves are probably taken from old, rundown planes. While it is fun to sit on the upper deck and look down on the world, it’s not usually easy to get a window seat up there. Possibly the worst aspect is the chaos that takes place while waiting for the thing. Hundreds of people waiting for different buses with no direction whatsoever. It’s like being in the Thunderdome.

3. The Amtrak

It’s the most convenient as it has the best track record of being punctual, you can wait indoors (you’ll really appreciate this if it’s pissing out), and you can show up essentially right at departure time. Sure, knowing when you'll get in for the most part provides peace of mind but the Amtrak is not immune to delays or cancellations, as I have experienced 30 minute to 1 hour delays and even a two-day cancellation during Snowmaggedan 2 years ago. You also don’t need to arrive hours early to ensure you make it through the zombified, uneducated security guards mishandling the lines due to negligence. It’s rather comfortable but it’s difficult for someone who travels fairly frequently to justify spending $300 round trip to travel 6 hours total, or $50 every hour. By the way, around the holidays it can cost up to $300 one way. I thought by now that the competition from the buses and flights would decrease the cost, but apparently my business teacher was wrong. Amtrak has led me to reevaluate everything I learned in school. 

4. The Greyhound

 I will say that I have not ridden the Chinatown bus in some time, but that’s due to the fact that I'm still affected by PTSD that resulted from one of my trips. As far as I could tell there were no rules, similar to  the basement in Paddy’s Pub. When I arrived everyone was milling around, the seats were uncomfortable, they oversold many tickets, and the bus smelled of urine and dirty feet. Don’t take the Chinatown bus under any circumstances. EVEN IF THERE'S A FIRE

5. Flying

Flying to Baltimore is my least favorite of all modes. While it’s slightly cheaper than the Amtrak and certainly more comfortable than the Chinatown and Megabus, it’s not convenient. Flying is the quickest form of travel and is obviously preferred for longer distances, but arriving 1 to 2 hours before the flight, landing, and then driving home from the airport makes it essentially the same duration as taking the train or bus. Even worse than gambling on plans for a direct flight running smoothly is taking a connecting flight, which is like playing Russian Roulette where, instead of dying, you miss your flight, ruining your plans, adding unnecessary stress. You only need look at the FAA furloughing air traffic controllers, to understand that air travel is fucked. I mean, I get the government cutbacks, but you would think that they'd coordinate this shit a little better instead of flights averaging 80 minute delays since Sunday. With flying the way it is nowadays, I would rather stay grounded.

- Kyle

What I learned from the Boston Bombing

Tsarnaev Brothers - So familiar they're dangerous

What the fuck happened there?

By "there" I'm referring to Boston, of course.

I mean, seriously, two Chechen kids decided to blow up bombs at the Boston Marathon, then the next day continued living as if everything was normal.

Details are emerging. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had supposedly become an Islamic militant as his time in America, as a foreign exchange student, drew to a close. The Russians asked the FBI about him in 2011, or so the record goes. But instead of leaving, he wanted to deliver a big knockout punch - an explosion that killed fewer people than about any shooting we've had over the last year set in place at the finish line of the third biggest marathon in the country. The 26-year-old jihadist roped his little brother into the scheme - side note, Kyle should I become a militant Muslim you have my permission to have me committed to Gitmo if you don't honor kill me first - and now Tamerlan's little brother is recovering from a failed suicide attempt in a hospital and will most likely be charged with all sorts of things that will result in his well-deserved execution.

A couple things jumped out at me here:

• Amidst all the hoopla about how America will be safer when we get guns off the streets, a bomb is set off that kills 3 and maims over 100 during one of the busiest and most regulated days in one of America's largest and most historic cities. BTW, the last mile of the marathon was run in honor of Sandy Hook. Reinforcing my belief that passing any gun control bills will only further advance the American illusion that the world is safe, just like TSA precautions that are widely-denigrated by anybody with half a brain and some scientific analysis into the efficacy of these intrusive practices.
• Everybody thought they would be Middle-Eastern Muslims, leading to the red herring detention of a Saudi who just happened to be there. Luckily they weren't right. No, it was a Caucasian Islamist. Seriously, how did people even discover Islam in the Soviet Union? Right, that whole Afghani war thing. It all comes back to Afghanistan. Anyway, they don't look white so let's just go with "Islamic"
• Terrorism vs. tragedy - because that's what's really important.

• That's right, Bill O'Reilly, perennial winner of the "Either I Was Malnourished as a Child or I'm an Evil Genius At Whipping Idiots to a Froth" award, rambled on about Boston by starting off claiming Barack Obama was wrong. Because Obama called this a tragedy. And it's not. It's an act of war or treason or both. Then he went on to say a kid opening up on a crowd of movie-goers isn't a terrorist but the Boston bombers are. His reasoning? The intent in Boston was political. That is, it's a statement against the government and so a crime punishable by death. The shootings in Colorado and Sandy Hook and all were just disaffected youths which has nothing to do with America. Wait, isn't the fact that our population is growing increasingly psychotic and we still have a weak infrastructure (at best) in place to deal with mental imbalance an insult to the liberties and ideals on which our nation was founded? Downright terrorist if terrorism is considered an attack on our nation and what we stand for? Oh wait, I get it. What O'Brien was trying to say is, if it's white American kids  - Christian kids, I mean - shooting up a bunch of people, it's just some big accident. If they're cafe-colored or darker, not to mention foreign, and worship Allah, yeah, that's an attack on America. Never mind that Dzokhar Tsarnaev looks like a younger Bob Dylan.
• I think they're all attacks on America and James Holmes and Dzokhar Tsarnaev should be tried the same. For all we know Holmes was brainwashed by Islamic jihadists like in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. He seems really out of it.
• Tamerlan was killed by his younger brother as he drove their stolen SUV at the police arresting Tamerlan after a murderous shootout. Tamerlan was run over and then dragged. These aren't Islamic militants in the standard sense that they were not well-trained or equipped. They were douchbag copycat wannabes. Like the kid at VA Tech who liked ultra-violent Korean movies. 
• Everybody who claims that our society has been desensitized by movies and video games needs to shut up right now. These bombs killed a fraction of the people killed in most Tarantino or Scorcese movies and such death and mayhem wouldn't be a blip on most video game screens. Yet the response and outpouring of anguish, love, and support has been amazing. It's something that revitalizes a person's belief in America, brotherhood, all of that. 

But now what the fuck? Where do we go from here? Is this yet another stick to be thrown on the Islamic bonfire? Further proof we need to destroy all worshipers of Allah and Mohammed, kill the good with the bad, like chemotherapy but for religion instead of cells? 

Or is it proof that we need to realize that the party is over? For a long time America was the ivory tower, a majestic monument to all that was right in the world. A tribute to freedom and strength and peace. Now we're more like the old rundown mansion from SUNSET BOULEVARD peopled with a society of Norma Desmonds holding onto atavistic values in a world that has seeped in over the last 60 years of neocolonialism and short-sighted socio-economic policies. This is a tragedy and is traitorous and all that. But compared to the violence and death that occurs every day in most of Africa and the Middle East, not to mention regular bombings and violent riots burning their way across Europe, it's not even a blip on the screen. Sure, perhaps the significance of the day adds to the impact. But only slightly. It's an exercise activity. Yes, it's Patriots Day but most people didn't even know that. It would be like a bomb going off during a Patriots game being declared an act of terrorism only because the team is the Patriots and that has meaning. Belichick would probably rally people to believe that. 

But no, it's time to really step back and take a long look at ourselves. Maybe the party is over. The outpouring of love from local Bostonians has been a wondrous reminds of the goodness of humanity. But why does it take horrible things happening to get us to look out for one another? 

Why do we waste countless hours and dollars debating regulations when we should really be addressing our woeful discarding of outcasts and disaffected, our ignorance of bullies and religious fanatics, whether it's Christians bombing abortion clinics or Muslims bombing footraces? All Religious fervor is dangerous in the wrong hands, no matter what higher power you embrace.

When will we actually make steps to address this Militant Islamic thing? And I mean not with weapons, it's woefully obvious we'll never win that way. You can't destroy ideals with explosives - as we learned when bystanders didn't miss a beat tending to the injured. But we have a serious PR problem in which we've been identified as the enemy of Islamic Jihadists in spite of the fact that, let's be honest, most American couldn't give two shits about them. But hell, when all they know of us is that we've turned their ancient backwards cities into smoldering rubble piles and our camouflaged boys can be easily scapegoated by power-hungry warlords as the cause (even though they'd been destroying such cities for much longer), of course they'll be irrationally angry. We had two small bombs rip through a city that for the most part is unscathed and it's a national outrage.

I don't know where we go from here. But hopefully instead of using this as an excuse for political infighting like d-bag O'Reilly or an excuse for killing Islamists or claiming it just another random act of violence, it will open up some serious national dialogues:

1. We spend billions to regulate (poorly) and assess and our nation's employment and economic health on an hourly basis. When will we start doing the same with the mental health of our citizens?
2. We show outpourings of love and helpfulness and attention to our brothers and sisters in a time of tragedy yet when everything is going good many of our citizens are quick to judge, turn a nose away, and claim that charity and goodwill is akin to communism.
3. We have yet to really address the rise of anti-American fanaticism, especially in the Islamic world, except to claim that somehow we'll magically bomb every head of a 1000-headed hydra before they grow back and then all their cousins and family left behind will just decide those heads were stupid.
4. We foster illusions of safety and certainty in an increasingly unsafe and uncertain world. The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is growing rapidly. Such a situation breeds this kind of violence - look at Mexico, for example. Why doesn't one of our liberal politicos sack up and say something like that?

Again, though, I don't know what the solution is. But in the words of Jerry Springer, "Till next time, take care of yourself, and each other."

- Ryan

Colorful Thieves: Blue Collar vs. White Collar, Fun All Around

A playboy walks into the U.S. Bank of Jackson Hole dressed to the 9s and wearing glasses on New Year's Eve. He says he's from a Mexican gang, his cohorts are outside, and if they don't give him all their money he and the narcos are gonna turn this place into the goddamn Alamo.

The teller rounds up about $150k in cash and the man leaves. The money is nothing in a big world and, even more, it's federally insured. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and John Dillinger said, robbing a bank is robbing "the man". And amazingly enough this exact robbery happened a few months ago in my small town of Jackson, WY. This was the biggest crime most of the small-town keystone cops here had ever seen, a movie-worthy bank robbery in a town whose population is only barely higher than its elevation.

The man is caught in Sandy Utah and awaits trial. But here's the big twist - the Australian national Corey Donaldson has just said the Federal Government is too corrupt, slimey, and downright greedy to try him for any crime. Because here's the kicker - Donaldson claims he gave all the money he stole to poor people.

So nobody was hurt. No weapons were used. The minimum sentence if convicted of 2nd degree bank robbery is 5 years. No doubt he'll get much more.

Just a couple notes, the amount was $150k and it came from no citizens of the nation but actually from a pool of all citizens so the average hurt per person is in the pennies. It was just a bold, old west robbery and the robber is now pulling a whole Robin Hood act in a nation where the division between the haves and the have nots is greater and greater, a perfect such scenario.

~

On the other hand, tonight "American Greed" on CNBC is doing a profile on a man named Charles Martin. Charles was the head of a company called One World Capital. He and his partner ran their company, a hedge fund which utilized the shady world of Forex trading, like a personal money supply. 

He and partner ran a ponzi scheme that swindled what amounted to $17,000,000 dollars they simply stole from about 1000 victims. Or in other words he and his partner stole $17,000 from each of 1000 people who trusted him and believed that the world of capitalism is well enough regulated that such could not happen. He was sentenced to 17 years for this - I wonder how many of these he's going to serve. An interesting fact, over a one-year period he spent over $1 million on strip clubs and restaurants. Now that's a playboy, for sure.

I have some personal experience with the man - he invested $250k in a movie I was producing starring guys like Jeremy Renner and Simon Baker. He pulled out when the spoiled trust-funder director had a poop fit over the phone about the tight strings Martin was putting on the money. I met with him a few times, including a dinner at Mastro's in which the man bought me a rare New York Strip. Or rather he said he was covering dinner so I ordered one. Then we tried to sell the hideous Tom Berenger/Busta Rhymes movies he'd invested in. Then he went to jail for running a ponzi scheme and my brief experience in film finance went belly up alongside his investors and the rest of the finance world - his downfall was just a few months behind Lehman Brothers'.

So the lesson is if you're gonna rob somebody, go big. Because you'll probably get caught. And go high-end. Low-end gets caught quickly and prosecuted intensely. A white collar thief bangs high-end strippers and drinks Cristal with his stolen money for over a year. Low end, you get $150k. High end, you get $17M. 

On the other side the low end crooks only hurt a few people, if that (violent robberies aside). High end ruins lives and destroys the dreams of aspiring young film producers.

So it goes.

- Ryan

J.R. Smith: Tattoos Do Not Always Lead to Championships

It seems like J.R. Smith’s 100 tattoos has lead to ink poisoning which has affected his ability to think properly. Him emulating Jason Terry’s vow of getting a tattoo if his team wins the NBA championship will not lead to the same result. While Jason Terry's declaration seemed more out of desire, J.R. Smith's declaration feels like it is based out of motivation/desperation. The Knicks look solid and with Melo basically guaranteed the NBA scoring title since he has averaged upper 30 ppg over the last several weeks and Durant’s Thunder locking up first place in the West thus leading to the decreased playing time of the only competition, they will certainly be a difficult challenge. In fact, this Knicks team does remind me of the Mavericks when they won the Championship two years ago (they even have three players from that championship roster), but that was against a Heat that was still developing chemistry between their big three. Miami has progressed substantially since then and cruised all year long to the best record in the NBA and second longest win streak in NBA history. They locked up 1st place in the Eastern Conference more than a week ago and neither the Knicks, nor anyone else, can match up with a rested Heat. Even if they do squeak out a series victory in what would be an exhausting and pain-inducing Eastern Conference Finals, they will be limping to the end like THE OFFICE since losing Michael Scott. They will be left with little fuel when competing against most likely the quick and athletic Thunder and there is not enough adderall, steroids, or cocaine that allow them to match the intensity

Coincidentally, J.R. Smith doesn’t have any more room on his body for another one anyway unless he decides to get the face tattoo and we saw how well that worked for Stu.

- Kyle

The Random Morning Update, 4/15/13

(from "Furious Diaper")

This nation is full of an endless supply of the variable wonders of excess, largesse, hypocrisy, bravery, strength, softness, humility, inspiring citizens and depressing realities. But all in all it truly is one helluva dynamic nation and goddamn if everything, from politics to entertainment to health care, doesn't tie in together in one wonderful bow.

1.) Let's start with gun control. Right now the big thing they've been debating back and forth is gun control and sure, I agree with that. Background checks doesn't seem like a bad idea. But all the spin they're throwing into it, that this will be a victory for the victims of Newtown and Aurora and Arizona and everywhere else, it's all just bullshit.

Guns didn't kill people there, just like they didn't kill people in Columbine. Just like it wasn't the gun manufacturers who stormed the beach at Normandy. People kill people. And in the case of Newtown and Aurora and Columbine and Virginia Tech and all that shit, it was disaffected kids with hints of mental issues.

My problem with the way we're attacking this is there's this huge myth that controlling guns will stop these massacres from happening. Nevermind the cop who went crazy and started shooting folks in L.A. before his shootout up by Big Bear, the real enemy is guns. Wake up. Especially fellow liberals, instead of freaking out about guns this was the time to start bringing up our nation's abysmal treatment of mental illness. This was when you could open a real dialogue about how in general our society likes to push mental illness aside, sweep it under the rug like a herd of elk pushing the sick one out of the pack and hoping maybe it gets picked off by a bear.

More people were killed by cars than by guns last year. Do we pass sweeping bills raising penalties for drunk driving and speeding, other traffic infractions? No. Because this has become another distraction from the very real problems facing our nation. At the forefront is that our citizenry is getting crazier and nobody seems to want to do a damn thing about it. Bath salts didn't make Rudy Eugene eat Ron Poppo's leathery face - in fact he hadn't even taken Bath Salts (and BTW, bath salts are just those weird pseudo-drugs bored stoner kids without access to real drugs buy at head shops) but this harmless Ecstasy-like drug was given out as the cause by the Miami Fraternal Order of Police because nobody wants to admit that a severely mentally-ill man might just take to eating another man's face.

Here's the basic wrap-up - wasting time and money on gun controls and thinking it will do anything to make our society any less prone to massacres is like wasting the billions of dollars we do on fighting drug dealers and thinking it'll solve our drug problem. Supply-side never works - whether talking drugs, guns, or economics. We have to confront the fact that in our modern age alienation and mental health issues are more prevalent than ever. Though it IS much simpler to just pass tighter gun controls and when massacres happen with stolen guns or machetes or poisoned water fountains with some poor deranged loner kid just wanting to exact a group suicide, at least Obama can say he passed gun control laws.

2.) Which leads me to political issue #2: Gay Marriage.

It's absurd that this should still be an issue. I in all honesty don't understand it. There's simply no valid reason why gay marriage isn't legal. Let's look at a few of the "anti" arguments:

• "It's against the bible."So is being rich (eye of the needle passage). If we're talking Old Testament we should stone fat people and your wife can claim a child if she simply lays on top of the servant girl you impregnated while the servant gives birth. Oh yeah, and divorce is against the teachings of the bible as well. 
• "It ruins the state of marriage." Hello, divorce. The divorce rate hovers at times near 50, 60% in our nation - that is ruining the state of marriage. If we don't legalize gay marriage, the only logical thing to do is to outlaw divorce too. Wait, straight white rich people get divorced a lot. Yeah, that won't work.
• "It'll make my son gay if he sees other gay people." I've seen a lot of gay people. I respect them. I support them. But the idea of touching another dude's dingus, much less his culero, is fucking gross. This isn't a "learned behavior". It's not a choice. As Richard Pryor said, "Y'ever seen a man's asshole? Nobody chooses that."

Alright, and this could go on but the truth is, it's just absurd that this is even still an issue.  Prop 8 kept gays from getting married in California thanks to a huge media push from the Mormons but didn't they believe that a darkness of skin reflects a darkness of soul and that plural marriage is the teachings of god and that a failed huckster found magic writings only he could read with magic glasses that said the lost tribe of Israel was of the very tribes of Native Americans that the Mormons ended up fighting very savagely as they began their westward journeys?

This is stupid. Gay marriage will add more stability to our fragile society by officially recognizing unions that are already strong and happening, will add money to our struggling coffers (have you ever seen a gay wedding? They go all out), and is just the right thing to do as respectful, decent human beings.

3.) You know, this really does harken in part back to the whole civil rights movement. And if Hollywood has shown us anything over the last year, it's that we're not in a post-racial America. From LINCOLN to DJANGO UNCHAINED and now 42, Hollywood is out to remind our nation how hideously racist we've been in the past and to teach a younger generation to throw off the shackles of parents who publicly and proudly called Obama a nigger (see: most of the South). The best scene in the movie is when a young bright-eyed kid goes to a Dodgers game to see his hero play, Pee-Wee, and then starts yelling "nigger go home" after his fat, white trash father yells the same when Jackie Robinson takes the field. But when the kid sees Pee-Wee put his arm around Robinson's shoulders, he suddenly feels ashamed of himself. I still see and hear racism all the time - both front and center and hidden. But someday there will be movies about the gay rights movement where an American audience will see evil, ugly white trash  yelling "Get out of here faggot" and feel ashamed. I look forward to the children of these homophobes feeling real disrespect for their discontent bigoted parents. On the other hand, the Dodgers aren't exactly doing great things these days.

4.) Saw something about a brawl breaking out in the Dodgers/Padres game. All sorts of folks are saying they're ashamed, that it's an embarrassment, all this bullshit but I think the opposite. I think that baseball's a leftover of a time long gone past. Yes, I enjoyed watching playoff games - at least flipping between that and stuff that was interesting. But what we forget is that the great history of baseball is filled with bench-clearing brawls. Made it interesting. One of the best parts of 42 was when Jackie's teammates fought a racist pitcher for beaning him. The truth is, this used to be a nation of tough men and hearty women. Even more, our sports have always been a representation of our nation - including the fact that we can accept and even rise to the fact that chaos is a very real part of life. Therefore sports need some chaos, some madness, for us to fight through, prove our mettle, and continue on. It shows a team has the fighting spirit which, for a perennially-dogged L.A. Dodgers club certainly hasn't been shown on the diamond. Speaking of L.A. sports

5.) Kobe! The man's out with a torn ACL. Yes they're at least over 50% for the year. And they're getting close to clinching a playoff spot. But with possibly the best roster in modern basketball, it's atrocious that it should even be a question. I mean they went through 2 coaches at the beginning of the season, spent absurd amounts of money, and now with their star out who knows if this neo-All-Star team will even make the post-season. Crazy. Though if they start heading downhill, and lacking a Kobe, it will allow me to test my Lakers theory - how many people spend hundreds of dollars on tickets to the Staples Center just to see Jack Nicholson get riled up courtside? Does anybody remember the whole Kobe rape thing? Well L.A. has a new one to focus on:

6.) Audrie Pott. This is just - it's just disturbing in the worst way. For those of you who haven't heard about it, this beautiful young girl was at a party when a couple guys sexually assaulted her. One of them snapped a picture and sent it around. Teenage years are already tough enough, especially for girls who have to walk the tightrope between being deemed a prude or being deemed a slut - and sometimes both. Anyway, she hanged herself because the picture wouldn't go away and everybody she knew knew her shame. I'll just say this now, if that had been my daughter, those boys should consider themselves lucky if they went to jail. But yes, this is being prosecuted. The disturbing thing is this isn't a new occurrence - a nearly parallel incident happened in Canada, other cases of football players raping a passed out girl and snapping a picture they sent around happened last year, so on. This savagery is the most base of human behavior. There really is nothing more depraved than not only raping a girl but then being proud enough of it that you take pictures and show them to your friends. And considering the resilience of teenagers and the desire to just bury shame deep, one can only surmise that shit like this happens a lot more than we'd expect. 

This is something we need to address as a nation. Yes it's cyber-bullying, and we've supposedly been cracking down on bullying, but in reality this should be classified as something new cyber-sexual assault. A federal offense compounded by very real human rights violations. Should be enforced with requisite castration. Fuck this worthless crusade on guns, fuck trying to vote out ignorance, and fuck people who get worked up over a little tussle at a ball game or Kobe Bryant's anterior cruciate. We as a people like to point to physical things as the sole truth (except in the case of the bible, where physical proveable things are often the enemy), the enforceable actionable enemy. But maybe instead of getting bamboozled by the shine and the sparkle we need to look at the real problems with America - that is, the state of the American head. It's more fucked up than it's been in years and, seemingly, teeters even closer to the edge.

Until then, we'll be a nation that placates our horrors with a combination of superficial solutions and simply turning a blind eye. And spends our time and attention worrying about the torn ligament of a wealthy athlete while pushing aside the desperate pleas of a helpless young girl.

Happy Monday.

- Ryan