Open Thread Jan. 25: Horndogs and Tide Pods
We have an apparent blockade on real news this morning. The interwebs are clogged with stories about celebrities being accused of rape and sexual assault, a veritable cornucopia of horndogitude. Russell Simmons, David Copperfield, Nelly, even ugly-as-a-mud-fence porn star Ron Jeremy — which brings up the question, “Jesus, Ron, don’t you get enough of that at work?”
Poster boy for love-lorn old men, though, remains DelCo Congressman Pat Meehan, who took the admittedly tawdry story of his payout to a harassed aide and used it to turn himself into a national laughingstock. Every woman who writes a column now has a crack at him, and it isn’t pretty. This piece captures the general tone, and it demonstrates that there is one thing worse than having all the women in the country angry at you — having all the women in the country laughing at you. It brings to mind a famous quote by author Margaret Atwood, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
Speaking of Atwood, she wrote this lament on the passing of author Ursula K. Le Guin.
In her 2014 essay “About Anger,” she writes, “Anger is a useful, perhaps indispensable tool in motivating resistance to injustice. But I think it is a weapon — a tool useful only in combat and self-defense. . . . Anger points powerfully to the denial of rights, but the exercise of rights can’t live and thrive on anger. It lives and thrives on the dogged pursuit of justice. . . . Valued as an end in itself, it loses its goal. It fuels not positive activism but regression, obsession, vengeance, self-righteousness.”
What are The Kidz up to these days? Apparently, eating Tide pods. This isn’t like the original problem with the little packets of detergent and bleach, which was that toddlers entranced by the look and smell were eating them. This is fueled by teens who want to go viral on YouTube. This being America, a bar in Pennsylvania has figured out how to make this work for them by inventing the Tide pod shot While it has the colors exactly right, it’s not exactly a taste sensation: The layers are formed by Bailey’s Irish Cream, vodka with orange food coloring and the blue citrus liqueur Curacao. “It’s terrible,” the bartender said. “But we’re a bar. We serve adults.”
In our quest to bring you Eagles-related news that matters not even a little bit to your life, journalists were given word yesterday that some mook bet millions of dollars on the Eagles at a Las Vegas sports book. Remember, the Birds don’t have to win for him to collect — they just have to lose by 4 points or less, which even Donovan McNabb managed in his crack at the Pats.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/24/democrats-drop-dreamer-demand-with-budget-deal-in-reach-366992
The Coons/Trump agenda wins again. This is why I am already 100% with “Candidate ?”.
Fuck. These. Spineless. Bootlickers. Video of Delawareans being rounded up and deported would be 100% fine to use as a campaign ad against Craper. I cant even muster my usual level of low-wit this pisses me off so much. They have no conviction, no loyalties, and no goddamn courage.
You don’t get it, Ben. Our “leaders” are actually just followers, and they are following the official Delaware reaction to anything: “Don’t Rock the Boat.” The number of people who are moved by the plight of the dreamers is even lower than the number who were disgusted by the guy who won the election despite all the disgust.
RE: Tide Pods
I consider these trends to be Mother Nature’s way of thinning the herd. I mean really if there is someone who is interested in the consumption of Tide Pods, do you really want that person to reproduce? One of the negative collateral effects of government and cottage industry of protecting people from themselves is that the dumb survive long enough to reproduce. This dumbing down of the species is what begat people like (insert whatever name or group floats your boat mine is snake handlers in Pentecostal churches ). If mankind is to survive and evolve, it must not dilute the species of those with questionable mental faculties. Unfortunately, some agency will come along to regulate Tide Pods or require a license to buy pods and prohibit the sale of pods to minors.
Dave: The overwhelming majority of the roughly 12,000 annual calls to poison hotlines about ingestion of laundry pods are for kids 5 and younger.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/us/tide-pod-challenge.html
As the human species is doomed anyway, why not mitigate suffering along the way?
For Ben, a story to remind you what shitstains Americans really are: The people who don’t give a fuck about the individuals involved, because they stand for a Principle:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/us/dreamers-opponents-daca-deal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
The principle, of course, is “I’ve got mine, Jack.” When we’re nuked out of existence, nobody outside the continent will mourn us.
Why would anyone want to buy a Tide Pod?
It seems like a product with only negative attributes.
“kids 5 and younger.”
@Alby. Of course I was referring to the you tubers who are doing it. However, as long as you brought up the kids 5 and younger, my outrage(as much as I resort to outrage) is for whenever I see the tragedy of a child (or pet) being harmed because of parental stupidity. A kid or pet in car with rolled up windows, toddlers allowed to wander around a pool, loaded firearms in reach of child, dogs changed up in a yard in freezing cold.
These creatures can only survive if their caregivers protect them. It is way too easy to have a child or dog because invariably there are too many who demonstrate why they should not be responsible for either a child or a pet. So when someone does something stupid to harm their self, my general attitude is “good” at least they won’t be around inflict their stupidity on creatures who cannot care for themselves.
And yeah, we may be doomed, but while we are here, at least we should be able protect those who can’t protect themselves. If I were king, a license would be required for both kids and pets, parenting/caregiver classes.
Dave: I was trying to explain that any restrictions on the product — certainly unlikely in the age of Trump — would be because of the tots, not the teens. Never fear, it won’t be necessary. P&G already is trying to manage the PR fallout, because it has billions at stake. People respond to incentives like that.
LE: Convenience, apparently, though there is an environmental benefit in that overuse of detergents adds to the phosphate pollution in waterways, and pods showed people how little people really need per load. Pods were 15% of the market two years ago, and they’ve probably gone up since.
One of the unfinished strands in the “Me Too” “Time’s Up” enviroment is the open question of how far the positive forces of change will get in the struggle to make life better for women. I’ve heard women say that they simply want to purge the culture of “toxic patriarchal behaviors”. I’ve observed the body language of other women speakers on the tube who seem to want something more, possibly even a shift to matriarchy, although none of them have said that. It poses an interesting set of possible scenarios in how this all will play out, and I haven’t a clue as to what would be best for all…
Hell, we can’t even all agree not to eat the Tide Pods.
This just in to the Philadelphia Inquirer: Rep. Pat Meehan announced he won’t run for re-election. So much for how Mrs. Meehan must have reacted.
You forgot the exclamation marks.
Mrs Meehan can now have her soul mate back….. except she is not his!
“You forgot the exclamation marks.”
Too phallic.