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April 10th, One Day Without Shoes (or Comprehension)
Today is a day in which a company encourages you to go barefoot for a day (the website for this year has been mostly scrubbed of overt branding; criticism and backlash against this cynical corporate venture must be growing) of in order to ‘raise awareness’ and ‘help children’ the world over. Oh, and let’s not forget profit from the gullibility and ignorance of people. I’ve discussed how Tom’s Shoes plays on peoples ignorance in a previous post and thus shall not linger too long on how despicable this ad campaign is. I will repost a quick summary, just so we’re all aware of the how crappy this one-day nonsense actually is.
“Companies like Tom’s shoes take White Liberal Guilt and build a empire on the fuzzy feel good notion of helping others just by buying their brand of shoes. Hey, what could be wrong with getting shoes and having another pair donated to a needy person elsewhere on the globe? The notion of BOGO or “buy one, give one” is a cagey play by Tom’s as it exploits our altruistic instincts; we want to be good generous people, we want to be seen as people that help. It is a nice feeling, but should nice feelings escape critical examination? Of course not, especially when the noxious tentacles of greed are wrapped firmly around our feel-good assumptions about a product or service. NEWSFLASH – The poor of the world do not need more shoes! Sustainable jobs, debt forgiveness, clean water (etc.) – hell yes, but shoes, unless they are edible are far down the frakking list.”
Yah, you get to raise awareness. Awareness of a brand of shoes that is playing you for your altruistic notions in order to flog their product. So when you see the people walking around barefoot today make a note, these are also the same shallow people who do not bother with doing their research and as a result have wholeheartedly bought into the superficial lies of a misanthropic corporate entity.
Celebrate a day without shoes indeed.
What are the inner workings of The Daily Show or Real Time with Bill Maher? The interviews give a small slice of insight into what the leading satirists in America believe they are doing and why they do what they do. Also, Rory Bremner, from the UK is also mentioned. I’ve never heard of him until now but it seems he occupies the same space as Stewart and Maher. I’ll see if I can dig up some of Bremner’s work, for the sake of curiosity.
Debating the religious on a one to one basis is almost always an exercise in frustration. The religious indoctrination often runs both wide and deep making finding a reasonable starting point extremely difficult. What is beneficial is to listen to both sides advance their arguments and then deconstruct them to see who has the better argument and proceed from there. William Lane Craig is a popular youtube christian apologist who regularly trots out a tired set of arguments for the existence of his sky-daddy of choice, the christian god.
WLC has a degree in philosophy but I do not think we should label him a philosopher as Philosophy, as mentioned in the video, is the search for truth and as WLC explicitly states, that search for truth has little interest to him.
Dprjones does a competent job of examining the arguments of WLC and showing why they are faulty and should be rejected by rational people.
I’m thinking we need a Canadian version for our own reality challenged Conservative party.
Skydiving with a cello = Awesome.
“Happy Together” is a 1967 song from The Turtles‘ album of the same name. Released in February 1967, the song knocked The Beatles‘ “Penny Lane” out of the #1 slot for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.[1] It was the group’s only chart-topper. “Happy Together” reached #12 on the UK Singles Chart in April 1967.[2] The song was written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, former members of a band known as The Magicians.[1] The song had been rejected a dozen times before it was offered to The Turtles, and the demo acetate was worn out.[3]
The Turtles performing “Happy Together”, on The Ed Sullivan Show, May 14, 1967.
The song is in chromatic-minor.[4]
I think one of the smartest things a parent can do is get rid of the TV if they have children. TV land is a violently misogynistic place that perpetuates the current ugly set of cultural norms we have here in North America. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation shares some startling/depressing facts about what people are subjected to while they watch TV.
“Nearly 2 out of 3 TV programs contained some
violence,2 averaging about 6 violent acts per hour.3
• Fewer than 5% of these programs featured an
anti-violence theme or prosocial message emphasizing
alternatives to or consequences of violence.4
• Violence was found to be more prevalent in children’s
programming (69%) than in other types of
programming (57%). In a typical hour of programming,
children’s shows featured more than twice
as many violent incidents (14) than other types of
programming (6).5
• The average child who watches 2 hours of
cartoons a day may see nearly 10,000 violent incidents
each year, of which the researchers estimate
that at least 500 pose a high risk for learning and
imitating aggression and becoming desensitized to
violence.6
• The number of prime-time programs with violence
increased over the three years of the study, from
53% to 67% on broadcast television and from
54% to 64% on basic cable. Premium cable networks
have the highest percentage of shows with
violence, averaging 92% since 1994.7
With this sort of socialization base are we really surprised about the lack of empathy and caring in our society?
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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