After the fiancée-punching scandal the NFL suffered this fall, the league is working on an anti-domestic-violence campaign; a new public-service announcement featuring about two dozen pro footballers debuted this Thursday during the Chargers–Broncos game. But the question persists: How can the NFL paint itself as progressive while it permits one of its franchises to use a patently offensive team name? Calling a team “the Vikings” is grotesquely insensitive to everyone concerned about domestic abuse. Minnesota might as well call its team “the Pillagers” or “the Rapists.”
Of course, the public’s attitude toward Vikings has changed over the years. According to a piece in The Spectator by Melanie McDonagh, “the Vikings-as-peaceful-traders approach has now been academic orthodoxy for two generations.” But according to an Aberdeen University historian named David Dumville, whom the piece quotes, “We’re being invited to forget vast amounts.” Dumville “puts the fashion for cuddly Vikings squarely down to ‘Swedish war guilt about not participating in the [second world] war and American political correctness.’” In fact, McDonagh writes, “the Vikings’ cruelty and joy in battle put them in a class of their own.” Per the article’s title, “the Vikings really were that bad.” And according to the Huffington Post, new research done at the University of Oslo suggests that Vikings’ slaves and sex slaves would be beheaded and buried with their deceased masters. Is the NFL promoting rape culture?
Josh Gelernter, “Cleaning up the NFL”, National Review, 2014-10-25.
October 30, 2015
QotD: Maybe the Minnesota Vikings should also change their name
October 28, 2015
The koans of Zim Tzu, Lions edition
At the Daily Norseman, the eminent Zimmerologist Ted Glover provides an informed, wise, and fully footnoted translation of the most recent press conference of Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer. Rather than merely repeat Zimmer’s words, Glover transcribes, analyzes, and explains the subtle nuances of the famed Zim Tzu, warrior-poet, philosopher, and football coach:
… it was a somewhat content Mike Zimmer that took to the podium today for his weekly knowledge dump we call Zim Tzu. What is Zim Tzu, you ask? Zim Tzu is a form of communication,* an ethos,**, and a way to make people around you better.***
By speaking in carefully thought out phrases* that have hidden clues amongst subterfuge and deception,** only then can we determine the true meaning of what Mike Zimmer actually meant.***
*It’s just me swearing a lot, which is kind of fun sometimes.
**I have no idea what anyone means when they talk about anything, much less Mike Zimmer talking about football. I can’t stress how much of a moron I truly am.
***This is just something to try and get you to laugh, and totally made up. 100% fake. Like Kardashian emotions.This will not make you, in any way, a better person. Literally not at all.
As we always do, we take excerpts of Mike Zimmer’s weekly press conference and interpret them.* What Zimmer said is in quotes, and what he actually meant is deciphered** by me immediately below.
*Again, there is no interpretation involved at all. I’m lucky if I can piece two sentences together and make them coherent.
**Look, my lawyer says spell it out, because there are people out there that are so dense that light cannot escape a room they might be sharing: I am making this all up. I can’t read minds, because if I could, I’d be like a super villain or something. I’d at least have keys to the Playboy Mansion. That would be sweet.
October 27, 2015
A dispatch from the new (Guild Wars 2) front
The Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns expansion was announced early in January 2015, but only released this month. The Orrator has a unique viewpoint of the new front opened up in the war against the dragons:
October 25, 2015
QotD: German culture and discipline
The Germans are a good people. On the whole, the best people perhaps in the world; an amiable, unselfish, kindly people. I am positive that the vast majority of them go to Heaven. Indeed, comparing them with the other Christian nations of the earth, one is forced to the conclusion that Heaven will be chiefly of German manufacture. But I cannot understand how they get there. That the soul of any single individual German has sufficient initiative to fly up by itself and knock at St. Peter’s door, I cannot believe. My own opinion is that they are taken there in small companies, and passed in under the charge of a dead policeman.
Carlyle said of the Prussians, and it is true of the whole German nation, that one of their chief virtues was their power of being drilled. Of the Germans you might say they are a people who will go anywhere, and do anything, they are told. Drill him for the work and send him out to Africa or Asia under charge of somebody in uniform, and he is bound to make an excellent colonist, facing difficulties as he would face the devil himself, if ordered. But it is not easy to conceive of him as a pioneer. Left to run himself, one feels he would soon fade away and die, not from any lack of intelligence, but from sheer want of presumption.
The German has so long been the soldier of Europe, that the military instinct has entered into his blood. The military virtues he possesses in abundance; but he also suffers from the drawbacks of the military training. It was told me of a German servant, lately released from the barracks, that he was instructed by his master to deliver a letter to a certain house, and to wait there for the answer. The hours passed by, and the man did not return. His master, anxious and surprised, followed. He found the man where he had been sent, the answer in his hand. He was waiting for further orders. The story sounds exaggerated, but personally I can credit it.
The curious thing is that the same man, who as an individual is as helpless as a child, becomes, the moment he puts on the uniform, an intelligent being, capable of responsibility and initiative. The German can rule others, and be ruled by others, but he cannot rule himself. The cure would appear to be to train every German for an officer, and then put him under himself. It is certain he would order himself about with discretion and judgment, and see to it that he himself obeyed himself with smartness and precision.
For the direction of German character into these channels, the schools, of course, are chiefly responsible. Their everlasting teaching is duty. It is a fine ideal for any people; but before buckling to it, one would wish to have a clear understanding as to what this “duty” is. The German idea of it would appear to be: “blind obedience to everything in buttons.” It is the antithesis of the Anglo-Saxon scheme; but as both the Anglo-Saxon and the Teuton are prospering, there must be good in both methods. Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine. But maybe his method has the advantage of producing a continuous supply of good governors; it would certainly seem so.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, 1914.
October 22, 2015
Eviction notice
The earliest known eviction notice:
Dear Mr. Adam,
I am instructed by my client to serve the enclosed eviction order concerning the property you now occupy.
He feels that he is justified in this action in view of your recent behaviour, which constitutes a breach of the terms of your lease.
You will remember the Clause 4 in your lease permitted you full access to the garden on condition that you undertook ‘to dress it and keep it’, and that my client generously allowed you to take for your own use any of the fruits and flower which grow there. However, he specified quite plainly that you were not under any circumstances to touch the prize-winning fruit tree in the south-east corner. This clause has been broken quite blatantly by your wife, who has freely admitted taking fruit from this tree. Her excuse, that she thought it would be all right, is considered by my client to be inadequate.
I should also like to add that I personally resent your wife’s insinuation that I not only gave her permission to take the fruit, but actually encouraged her to do so.
October 21, 2015
Toyota teases a Back to the Future pickup truck
October 21, 2015 is Back to the Future day, and Toyota is playing along with the theme:
In a press release from Toyota, Back to the Future co-creator and producer Bob Gale offers some background on the manufacturer’s partnership with the franchise. “Toyota stands apart for their nod to the future and the past with the auto technology depicted in the movies. When Toyota approached us about helping tell a bigger story about the future and innovation with the Mirai, we loved the direction — and who can resist Marty’s retro Toyota truck?”
Call the number on the screen to talk to Jimmy Joe Statler himself. He offers you three choices. Be sure to press 2 for a free license plate frame. He mentions that three customized BTTF Tacomas will be revealed at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles and Times Square in NYC. They are also doing a tour of Dallas, so keep your eyes peeled if you live nearby. No word on whether Toyota will release the flying cars seen in the window’s reflection at 00:19 in the video.
We don’t know if the custom Tacoma will be produced for sale, but it should be easy enough for you to make one yourself. Just make sure you include those sweet KC lights.
October 18, 2015
Is that how that meme started? ERMAHGERD!
They’re not quite as common as they once were, but the “ERMAGERD!” girl can still be found in lots of odd corners of the interwebz:
Maggie Goldenberger and her fourth- and fifth-grade pals used to amuse themselves by dressing up in weird clothes, doing crazy stuff to their hair, and posing for polaroids holding funny objects and making weird faces. Years later, Goldenberger uploaded some of her favorites to her Myspace and Facebook accounts, which led to Jeff Davis, who she didn’t know, posting it to Reddit, where a Redditor called Plantlife ganked it and captioned it with “GERSBERMS. MAH FRAVRIT BERKS” — and a meme was born.
The meme was pretty much perfect, a super-awkward tween frozen in a moment of crazy nerding-out over some super-awkward tween books. Combine that with the wordplay in which every vowel sound is “strangulated into ‘er'” and you get a meme that has refused to die, year after year.
Darryn King’s Vanity Fair profile of Goldenberger and history of the ERMAHGERD is a fascinating read. Most interesting to me is the fact that the meme’s premise — that the retainer-wearing, squinch-faced Goosebumps-clutching kid in the photo was a gormless, awkward tween with no idea of how weird she looked — is totally, perfectly wrong. The picture was posed, created by a savvy, funny, witty tween with more smarts than tweens are credited with by an unfair world, who created a genuinely comic character that inspired millions of people to riff on it. Not bad for a nine- or ten-year-old.
October 16, 2015
QotD: This explains so much
The entire brain weighs three pounds (1.4 kg) and so is only a small percentage of an adult’s total body weight, typically 2%. But it consumes 20% of all the energy the body uses. Why? The perhaps oversimplified answer is that time is energy.
Neural communication is very rapid — it has to be — reaching speeds of over 300 miles per hour and with neurons communicating with one another hundreds of times per second. The voltage output of a single resting neuron is 70 millivolts, about the same as the line output of an iPod. If you could hook up a neuron to a pair of earbuds, you could actually hear its rhythmic output as a series of clicks.
[…]
Neurochemicals that control communication between neurons are manufactured in the brain itself. These include some relatively well-known ones such as serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and epinephrine, as well as acetylcholine, GABA, glutamate, and endocannabinoids. Chemicals are released in very specific locations and they act on specific synapses to change the flow of information in the brain. Manufacturing these chemicals, and dispersing them to regulate and modulate brain activity, requires energy — neurons are living cells with a metabolism, and they get that energy from glucose. No other tissue in the body relies solely on glucose for energy except the testes. (This is why men occasionally experience a battle for resources between their brains and their glands.)
Daniel J. Levitin, The Organized Mind, 2014.
October 14, 2015
QotD: The temptations of power
The late Jean-Claude Duvalier, better known as Baby Doc, played only a small part in my life. I arrived in Haiti for the first time two years after his downfall, during the presidency of the eminently respectable academic, Leslie Manigat, who was soon to be removed by army coup. The pudgy bovine face of Baby Doc still adorned the worn and grubby banknotes in circulation, and I could not help but feel a certain personal sympathy for so eminently unintelligent and naturally undistinguished a person, thrust into a prominence and power he never sought, and actually wanted to avoid.
It cannot have been easy to be president for life from the age of 19, especially since he had a bossy mother, sister, and wife, all of whom plotted and intrigued for power. And if I had been in his shoes at that age, I think — being more intelligent than Baby Doc and therefore having my head more stuffed with adolescent nonsense — I should have been far worse even than he.
Theodore Dalrymple, “The Despot Within”, Taki’s Magazine, 2014-10-12.
October 11, 2015
QotD: The Kaiser’s Reich
“Anybody could rule this country,” said George; “I could rule it.”
We were seated in the garden of the Kaiser Hof at Bonn, looking down upon the Rhine. It was the last evening of our Bummel; the early morning train would be the beginning of the end.
“I should write down all I wanted the people to do on a piece of paper,” continued George; “get a good firm to print off so many copies, have them posted about the towns and villages; and the thing would be done.”
In the placid, docile German of to-day, whose only ambition appears to be to pay his taxes, and do what he is told to do by those whom it has pleased Providence to place in authority over him, it is difficult, one must confess, to detect any trace of his wild ancestor, to whom individual liberty was as the breath of his nostrils; who appointed his magistrates to advise, but retained the right of execution for the tribe; who followed his chief, but would have scorned to obey him. In Germany to-day one hears a good deal concerning Socialism, but it is a Socialism that would only be despotism under another name. Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter. He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things. He disputes, not government, but the form of it. The policeman is to him a religion, and, one feels, will always remain so. In England we regard our man in blue as a harmless necessity. By the average citizen he is employed chiefly as a signpost, though in busy quarters of the town he is considered useful for taking old ladies across the road. Beyond feeling thankful to him for these services, I doubt if we take much thought of him. In Germany, on the other hand, he is worshipped as a little god and loved as a guardian angel. To the German child he is a combination of Santa Claus and the Bogie Man. All good things come from him: Spielplätze to play in, furnished with swings and giant-strides, sand heaps to fight around, swimming baths, and fairs. All misbehaviour is punished by him. It is the hope of every well-meaning German boy and girl to please the police. To be smiled at by a policeman makes it conceited. A German child that has been patted on the head by a policeman is not fit to live with; its self-importance is unbearable.
The German citizen is a soldier, and the policeman is his officer. The policeman directs him where in the street to walk, and how fast to walk. At the end of each bridge stands a policeman to tell the German how to cross it. Were there no policeman there, he would probably sit down and wait till the river had passed by. At the railway station the policeman locks him up in the waiting-room, where he can do no harm to himself. When the proper time arrives, he fetches him out and hands him over to the guard of the train, who is only a policeman in another uniform. The guard tells him where to sit in the train, and when to get out, and sees that he does get out. In Germany you take no responsibility upon yourself whatever. Everything is done for you, and done well. You are not supposed to look after yourself; you are not blamed for being incapable of looking after yourself; it is the duty of the German policeman to look after you. That you may be a helpless idiot does not excuse him should anything happen to you. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing you are in his charge, and he takes care of you — good care of you; there is no denying this.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, 1914.
October 10, 2015
Free design advice for Facebook from the kindly folks at The Register
Facebook is reportedly rolling out a new button for their users to “dislike” posts they see on their feeds. The helpful souls at The Register offer their free, expert advice on how to go about doing this right:
- Like: The classic.
- Click Bait: For article links that people click on despite themselves and then feel like they’ve let themselves down shortly afterwards. The sort of posts that make you feel society has just got a little worse. Upworthy and BuzzFeed articles will be tagged with this option as a default.
- Idiot: To confirm that the author of the post is lacking in common sense and/or rational analysis. Most useful for politics and health issues.
- Umm: A useful passive-aggressive way of letting your friends know that you may want to take this post down or at least edit it heavily before others read it.
- Fresh Air: A positive, life-affirming choice that says to people: “Maybe it’s time you took a break from your laptop and went out into the real world for a bit.”
- Privacy: A direct link to the privacy settings for this particular post’s author so you are able to block, unfriend, or report them in one easy tap.
- Holiday: A “Fresh Air” Superlike. A firm encouragement that perhaps it’s time both you and the author take an extended holiday from Facebook and do something useful with your lives rather than just read others’ mindless thoughts and respond to them with equally mindless comments and emojis.
October 8, 2015
The koans of Zim Tzu, Broncos edition
Ted Glover comes back to us from the most recent press conference of Vikings coach Mike Zimmer and after the appropriate cleansings, meditations, and ritual incantations, distills the wisdom of Zim Tzu for us:
Mike Zimmer, the Vikings head coach and Chief Philosopher In Charge, doesn’t genuflect or toss out false praise after a close, hard fought game that the Vikings lost. No sir, because pats on the back are for the weak and needy, and Mike Zimmer is anything but that. But he does pass out knowledge bombs like a B-52 carpet bombs, if you know what you’re looking for,* and that’s where Zim Tzu comes in. What is Zim Tzu, you ask? Zim Tzu is Mike Zimmer’s calling card,** aside from his football acumen.
*I have no idea what I’m looking for
**I have no idea what the metaphor ‘calling card’ means, it just sounded good when I wrote it
It’s a philosophy*, a way of life**, and one must understand the nuances of the spoken word to get behind what he’s really trying to say.***
*Really, this is just a press conference with me inventing stupid things he never said
**Seriously, if this gives you some true meaning of life or answers some mystical question you’ve pondered for years, you are very susceptible to being brainwashed by a cult. Please seek professional help. Immediately. Like put this down and go see a therapist now kind of immediately
***No idea what he’s really trying to say. This is more farcical than Donald Trump’s hair.
As always, we take excerpts from Mike Zimmer’s weekly press conference and interpret his words into their final, crystallized true meaning.* What the coach actually said will be in quotes, and the Zim Tzu translation immediately follows.
*Seriously, if this were a book, you would find it in the ‘fiction’ section, because it’s all made up. Or in the ‘toilet humor’ category, between ‘dirty Irish limericks’ and ‘fart jokes.’ Wait, this starts with a Z. So it would be last. Where it belongs.
What Zim Tzu said: After watching the tape, I kind of really feel a lot like I did yesterday after the ballgame. Disappointed that we didn’t start better. I think we have some resiliency and some tough guys and some fight. Probably didn’t play good enough to win; too many mistakes against a team like that. We’re never going to have moral victories around here. Questions?
What Zim Tzu meant: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKK…we could’ve won that game. Moral victories suck. Winning at Denver would’ve been pretty cool, not gonna lie.
Q: Did they blitz more than you anticipated after recording seven sacks?
What Zim Tzu said: They blitzed a little bit more, yeah. We had a couple mental errors, we had a couple guys get beat, so it was a combination of things. I thought Teddy did a good job of getting the ball out, but there was a couple of time where we weren’t able to adjust the protection because of some of the movement things that we had going on.
What Zim Tzu meant: No more than the Germans blitzed Poland or France back in the day…YES THEY BLITZED MORE BECAUSE IT WORKED. If we would have pulled our heads out of our asses maybe we could’ve stopped it, but sometimes it felt they had 22 or 23 guys at the line of scrimmage. I’m just glad that Teddy wasn’t murdered. He was almost murdered.
October 5, 2015
QotD: The value scale of literature
The lowest forms of literature are, in descending order: pornography, the staff recommendations at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble, diet/fitness books, celebrity cookbooks, books of poetry written by pop stars, and, at the bottom of this unsavory slag heap, political memoirs, which have all of the narrative sophistication of pornography with none of the enjoyable bits.
Kevin D. Williamson, “A Plague of Memoirs: A courageously awesome American story of awesomely American courage”, National Review, 2014-10-06.
September 27, 2015
P.J. O’Rourke on Ann Coulter’s anti-semitism
In the Weekly Standard, P.J. O’Rourke discusses Ann Coulter’s recently expressed anti-semitic remarks during the Republican candidates’ debate:
She is young, scatter-brained, and heedless, but she is not an idiot. She graduated cum laude from Cornell and has a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. But no intelligent hike through the Minotaur’s labyrinth of politics can be made in 140-character baby steps. Especially when you’re walking in clown shoes.
What Ann Coulter tweeted was:
Cruz, Huckabee Rubio all mentioned ISRAEL in their response to: “What will AMERICA look like after you are president.”
And
How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?
Not anywhere near as many as there would and should be if FDR hadn’t been as much of a jerk about immigration as you are, Ann, you etiolated bean sprout butt trumpet.
As to why Israel is important, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, “Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ikh bin a Ishral.’ ”
And I mean it, even if, pope-kissing Mick that I am, my Yiddish is maybe sketchy.
Partly this is personal, Ann, you jangle-tongue, you all-clapper-and-no-carillon, you crack in the Liberty Bell. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, “It’s not me, it’s you.”
But, first, my contempt is moral. Antisemitism is evil. Per se, as you lawyers like to put it. For the sake of argument, let us “stipulate” that you are not per se an antisemite. Instead of saying that’s true, let us stipulate it with all the snarky lawyer freight that “stipulating” carries.
Being so stipulated, you are damn rude. One does not say, “f—ing Jews.” One does not say “f—ing blacks” or “f—ing Latinos” or even “f—ing relentlessly self-promoting Presbyterian white women from New Canaan.”
Manners are the small change of morality. You, Ann, are nickel and diming yourself. And may all the coins in Scrooge McDuck’s money bin land on you and squash you flat. (Scrooge, by the way, is not a Jew, he’s a duck.)
September 23, 2015
QotD: The Platonic Ideal of a Guardian column
The Guardian’s Aisha Mirza bemoans the “psychic burden” of living among white people, which is worse than being mugged.
The more I think about it, the more this may exemplify a near-perfect Guardian article, the ideal to which all other Guardian columnists should aspire. It’s haughty and obnoxious, is ignorant of relevant subject matter, is frequently question-begging, and its imagined piety is premised on a rather obvious double standard. Specifically, Ms Mirza’s belief that people who leave London do so, secretly, because they don’t feel comfortable living among people with skin of a darker hue, which is racist and therefore bad, and her own simultaneous preference not to live among people whose skin is paler than hers, which is somehow not racist at all, and is in fact aired as the last word in righteousness.
David Thompson, “Reheated (45)”, davidthompson, 2015-09-08.
