The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for November 2006

Borat- Some Humor is Too Sophisticated

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I haven’t seen Borat yet but I intend to. I have seen the character on the Da Ali G. show so I am familiar with him and of course I have already seen various clips online. In addition I have read many reviews of the movie.

In fact I was a bit surprised by how favorable the reviews were. I had suspected that the critics were going to savage the movie.

Many of them use terms that suggest that this is very sophisticated social satire and some have lauded the brilliance of the film.

Call me a spoilsport, but I worry that the very people whose prejudice and bigotry is being lampooned will not understand the joke and instead may appreciate hearing the validation of their bigoted views.

Just my two cents.

Happy Holidays is An Appropriate Greeting

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(This is a repeat from last year)

The other day someone wished me a Merry Xmas and I responded with Happy Holidays. He went off on a two minute tirade about how my comment was indicative of the problems with the US.

I was feeling feisty so I asked him if he approved of gay marriage. He said no to which I responded that I was glad to hear that because I was interested in sleeping with his daughter. He fumed and sputtered and made the mistake of continuing the conversation with me and because sometimes I enjoy engaging in juvenile and pedantic behavior I obliged him.

He told me that he was sure I was a liberal and a card carrying member of the ACLU. I told him that I was liberal in my use of ketchup and other condiments and asked him if he wanted to give me the secret ACLU handshake. I also told him that on the weekends my ACLU buddies and I liked to go the local hunting lodge and tear it up with the locals. This threw him for a loop but I wasn’t surprised because he was a simple man with simple thoughts that he had never explored.

He told me that he thought that it was a shame that I had killed our lord and I asked him if he really believed that. He said that with my words I was killing him again and again. So I asked him if he believed in the resurrection to which he said yes.

My next point kind of threw him because I asked him a simple question. I said you think that I killed G-d but how can you kill G-d and if I was capable of killing G-d did he think that it was smart to argue with me because if I had that kind of power I might choose to turn him into a newt or force him to live in detroit or cleveland.

At some point a woman joined our conversation and started shouting at me about something. As I am an old hand at pressing buttons I looked at her and asked her snootily if Kate Spade knew that she was carrying a poor knock-off and wondered if her shower curtain had somehow been turned into a dress.

And then she told me that I wasn’t acting very Xtian and I laughed and said that I never did. Little did I know that this would make her so upset that she offered to get on her knees and pray for me. I told her that getting on her knees in the parking lot might get us both arrested and that my wife would be quite upset with me if I let her, but thank you anyway.

In the meantime the man that had started all of this nonsense started yelling something about going on a mission to give every house a nativity scene. I told him that if he could fix the potholes and offer a chicken in every pot that I would vote for him.

And with that I said that I had to leave and so I wished him a Happy Kwanzaa and resumed my shopping.

Conservative Nonsense and Political Blather

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The election has come and gone. The people voiced their outrage and irritation with the establishment (read republicans) and now we wait to see what happens when the dust settles.

Throughout the blogosphere there are cries of frustration, cries of anger and cries of joy. But what gets my goat are the bloggers who produce these self-righteous posts of “I am going to spend the next two years chronicling the missteps and mistakes of the democrats” or “it will be fun to watch the democrats screw up. We’ll be back in a term or two.”

And of course there are the liberal blogs tooting their horns with “now we are going to fix all of the mistakes the republicans made.”

I dislike those as much as the former. Right now it feels to me like two teams of monkeys have been fighting over who gets to control the banana tree. Two groups have spent years engaged in finger pointing and what have we gotten out of it.

I am just sick of it. You all need an extra large dose of STFU. Stop talking and show me how you are going to make things better. Show me a plan, a coherent platform that illustrates how we can improve all of our lives.

This is not a country that is built upon one group. It is a potpourri of people and ideas. Let’s see if we can actually execute some of these plans. Let’s see if we can make it better.

I can only speak for myself, but until I see change I really don’t want to hear a word from anyone.

The sky is not falling. The country is not broken. We are not on the verge of civil war and we certainly are not going to be overrun by the hordes of Osama. We live in a country in which our impoverished are for the most part not as poor as some of those who live in the third world.

But we can and need to do better. I just hope that we are going to get to work on improving life for all of us.

The Gay Parade In Jerusalem

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And now I add my voice to the chorus of those who have already spoken about this. I very much appreciated what Jameel had to say on the matter.

I suspect that when push comes to shove he and I will have our differences, but as the Gemara says much can be worked out over a waffle breakfast.

This is another situation in which the opposition has done a better job of publicizing an event than the organizers ever could have done.

My own position on same sex marriage has been illustrated here, here and here. In short I haven’t any problem with it that I don’t have with heterosexual marriage.

That is not to say that I agree with everyone who is going to be marching at the parade either, but I support their right to do so.