"The Primacy Effect" is a thriller, based on a Tom Clancy book, in which Harrison Ford plays a CIA operative who has turned rogue and ... I don't know, beats up some guys. Actually, that's not what it is -- it's a term I made up for something that probably has a proper term somewhere, but I haven't come across it, so that means I get to make up my own term for it. "The primacy effect." Do you like it?
I'll start over. The "primacy effect" is a term I'm using for the tendency for my brain to have a certain thing in mind as the first example of some group. So there's a group, see, and there are things in that group, and my brain, probably arbitrarily, picks one of those things to be the thing that represents that group best -- the thing that has the most "groupiness," after the groupies have the thing ... and the ... group ...
I'll start over again. If you say the word "fruit," the first fruit, in my mind, is an apple. Banana is second. Orange is probably third. After that it gets fuzzy. Grapes rank before kiwis, definitely. But where would peaches compare with pears? Hard to say. I have no idea what criteria are being used to create these rankings in my head. I don't even know why these rankings are necessary.
Maybe it's just a weird quirk of my mind, this tendency to rank things in a group according to how emblematic, I suppose, they are of that group. In reality, I realize that apples are just as much fruits as bananas are. I don't mean to offend any bananas who are reading this by implying they are somehow less worthy than apples. It's just a ranking that my brain sets up for no apparent reason.
Among pets, dogs are first. Cats are second. I say that even though I don't like dogs at all -- in fact, I have a line ready if my two-year-old ever asks to get a dog: "Sorry honey, we can't get a dog, because daddy will kill it." All apologies to the dog lovers out there -- I'm sure yours is the one dog in the universe that isn't either a kiss-ass or an asshole or both -- but let's put that argument aside for now and concentrate on why my brain would rank dogs first in the "pets" category when cats are, have been, and always will be my favorite kind of pet.
I think it must be culturally programmed. Dogs are still the most common pet in the United States (despite the fact that they are worse in every possible way than every other possible pet, including sharks, tapeworms, and monkeys with liberal philosophies on poop-flinging), so maybe that's enough the make them First Pet in some abstract way.
But what about apples? Are apples really the most popular fruit in the United States? I have no idea. What about all the other things that seem to take first place in my mind? Among colors, blue is first. Red is second. Green is third, even though yellow really should be third, because it's more primary or whatever. (Sidebar: Did you know that in Japan, they traditionally don't make any distinction between green and blue? Much the same way most of us wouldn't make a distinction between yellow-orange and orange-yellow -- they just don't see the difference. It makes you realize that the rainbow isn't a starkly delineated set of rows -- it's a spectrum of gradually changing color tones, and each culture constructs its people's perception of where to draw the lines within that spectrum to differentiate colors.)
Hey, sidebar, shut up! I'm trying to make a point here. (Sidebar: Sorry.) What was I saying ... well, I suppose you get the point. Does anyone else have this primacy effect? If so, do you have different conceptions of what is First Pet or First Color or First Fruit or whatever else? And do you like dogs? If so, I don't want to hear about it.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Fun With Popes!
That sounds dirty. I meant, here are some fun bits of pope history:
2. The William Henry Harrison of popes was Urban VII, who reigned for only 13 calendar days in 1590, dying before coronation. (Urban did, however, have time to devise a radio format comprised of slammin' hip-hop, silky R&B, and all the funky beats rockin' da streetz of Vatican City. His on-air catchphrase was "I love it when they call me 'Big Pope-a!'") The first Stephen didn't even last as long as Urban -- he died of a stroke three days after election, before even being consecrated, so he's not considered a genuine pope. Sadly, the same fate befell Pope Stinky McDinglewink, (in my mind, anyway), who died of colon failure after farting the Nicean Creed.
3. The Vatican has an unwritten rule to alternate between adorable, charming popes and terrifying ex-Hitler Youth members who look like the Emperor from "Star Wars." (Not actually true, but it sure seems that way. John Paul II and Francis were and are so cute you want to put them in your pocket. Benedict looks like he is always about to say "Now witness the firepower of the fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!")
4. Celibacy was not written into law for all priests until 1123, more than a millennium after the establishment of the papacy. It was a common practice long before, though. The Spanish Council of Elvira (insert your own joke here) required celibacy of clerics around 300 AD.
5. Many popes were really extremely not celibate at all, particularly in the Middle Ages. John XII became pope in 955, when he was only 18. He behaved much like any 18-year-old would when given an incredible amount of power: He turned the Vatican into a virtual brothel, openly sleeping with dozens of women, including his father's concubine and his own niece. He didn't last long, though -- at the time, kings and emperors were very powerful, and John managed to clumsily piss off all of them and get deposed.
6. Medieval popes were were not all horny bastards like John XII -- some were violent psychopaths. Stephen VI hated his predecessor, Formosus, so much that he had to put him on trial, and was not given pause by the fact that Formosus was dead. In 897 Stephen dug up Formosus's corpse and interrogated it for hours. (All true.) Formosus showed no remorse, and in fact refused to defend himself at all, instead defiantly remaining dead. Stephen then proclaimed Formosus guilty and ordered three of his fingers cut off. The body was then dragged through the streets and thrown in the Tiber River.
7. Boniface VIII was a fun one. He was sort of the Joe Biden of the 1300s, an effective administrator who often said things that made people smack their heads. On the subject of sexual morality, he said "Why, there is no more to going to bed with women and boys than in rubbing one hand against the other." On the subject of spiritual immortality, which I think most of us think is central to Catholicism, Boniface said "A man has as much hope of survival after death as that roast fowl on the dining table there." These kinds of statements would have gotten him burnt at the stake if he weren't pope.
8. The full list of titles for the pope is: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God, King of Queens, Duke of Flatbush, Godfather of Soul, Beat Box Champion of the World, and Dr. Wolfgang Von Bushwickin the Barbarian Mother Funky Stay High Dollar Billstir. (All are true except the last 5, which are, in order, Kevin James, Duke Snider, James Brown, Rahzel, and the former Bushwick Bill.)
9. By the way, Francis might look adorable and be generally humble, but he is also very socially conservative. In Argentina, he fought hard against legalizing gay marriage, allowing gay people to adopt, and free birth control. So don't expect too much. Just wanted to throw some cold water on the celebrations.
1. Popes have taken some silly names: Pope Hilarius reigned from 461-468 and Pope Lando reigned from 913-914. Pope Stinky McDinglewink is not considered a genuine pope, since I just made him up.
2. The William Henry Harrison of popes was Urban VII, who reigned for only 13 calendar days in 1590, dying before coronation. (Urban did, however, have time to devise a radio format comprised of slammin' hip-hop, silky R&B, and all the funky beats rockin' da streetz of Vatican City. His on-air catchphrase was "I love it when they call me 'Big Pope-a!'") The first Stephen didn't even last as long as Urban -- he died of a stroke three days after election, before even being consecrated, so he's not considered a genuine pope. Sadly, the same fate befell Pope Stinky McDinglewink, (in my mind, anyway), who died of colon failure after farting the Nicean Creed.
3. The Vatican has an unwritten rule to alternate between adorable, charming popes and terrifying ex-Hitler Youth members who look like the Emperor from "Star Wars." (Not actually true, but it sure seems that way. John Paul II and Francis were and are so cute you want to put them in your pocket. Benedict looks like he is always about to say "Now witness the firepower of the fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!")
4. Celibacy was not written into law for all priests until 1123, more than a millennium after the establishment of the papacy. It was a common practice long before, though. The Spanish Council of Elvira (insert your own joke here) required celibacy of clerics around 300 AD.
5. Many popes were really extremely not celibate at all, particularly in the Middle Ages. John XII became pope in 955, when he was only 18. He behaved much like any 18-year-old would when given an incredible amount of power: He turned the Vatican into a virtual brothel, openly sleeping with dozens of women, including his father's concubine and his own niece. He didn't last long, though -- at the time, kings and emperors were very powerful, and John managed to clumsily piss off all of them and get deposed.
6. Medieval popes were were not all horny bastards like John XII -- some were violent psychopaths. Stephen VI hated his predecessor, Formosus, so much that he had to put him on trial, and was not given pause by the fact that Formosus was dead. In 897 Stephen dug up Formosus's corpse and interrogated it for hours. (All true.) Formosus showed no remorse, and in fact refused to defend himself at all, instead defiantly remaining dead. Stephen then proclaimed Formosus guilty and ordered three of his fingers cut off. The body was then dragged through the streets and thrown in the Tiber River.
7. Boniface VIII was a fun one. He was sort of the Joe Biden of the 1300s, an effective administrator who often said things that made people smack their heads. On the subject of sexual morality, he said "Why, there is no more to going to bed with women and boys than in rubbing one hand against the other." On the subject of spiritual immortality, which I think most of us think is central to Catholicism, Boniface said "A man has as much hope of survival after death as that roast fowl on the dining table there." These kinds of statements would have gotten him burnt at the stake if he weren't pope.
8. The full list of titles for the pope is: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God, King of Queens, Duke of Flatbush, Godfather of Soul, Beat Box Champion of the World, and Dr. Wolfgang Von Bushwickin the Barbarian Mother Funky Stay High Dollar Billstir. (All are true except the last 5, which are, in order, Kevin James, Duke Snider, James Brown, Rahzel, and the former Bushwick Bill.)
9. By the way, Francis might look adorable and be generally humble, but he is also very socially conservative. In Argentina, he fought hard against legalizing gay marriage, allowing gay people to adopt, and free birth control. So don't expect too much. Just wanted to throw some cold water on the celebrations.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Pope, pope, pope
Pope, pope, pope.
The coverage makes me mope.
I may sound like a dope,
But I’m not at all religious.
I guess I should have hope
They find a way to cope
And stop the priests who grope.
That should not sound ambitious.
Just let the priests elope.
Bring women in the scope --
Should gays be punished? Nope!
Stop being so malicious!
Sigh … If Jesus came today
You think that He would say
“You guys are A-OK,
Keep going on your way”?
A pope who will obey
The wishes of the lay
And stop, and think, and pray
Might get more folks to stay.
And for Christ’s sake, it’s not 1693.
The end.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
What Were the Aughts?
Every recent decade in American life has a distinct persona in my mind. These personas are of course oversimplified, but I think they do get at each decade's overall zeitgeist.
For instance, the 1950s were a time of delirious, family-friendly, button-down conformity, celebrating, in a very PG-rated way, a sudden surplus after decades of depression and war. It was about cheerful bouncy-haired housewives in impeccable dresses delighting in their ironing, while their gray-suited and gray-fedora-ed husbands with square jaws stopped at bars for cocktails on the way back from their jobs in insurance. Children in coonskin caps were wowed by musicals and cowboy movies, and the dark underbelly of life was carefully sequestered from view.
Again, this is a necessarily oversimplified view. I realize that this does not at all describe the situation for African-Americans under the thumb of Jim Crow, for example. This is more the image of the decade as it wanted to be seen.
The 1960s represented a dramatic overthrow of the 1950s, as those kids ditched their coonskin caps in favor of sex, drugs, and political awareness. Baby boomers experienced their youthful rebellion phase in a big, dramatic way. Bland conformity was replaced by wild experimentation. Patti Page was replaced by Janis Joplin. Tucked-in shirts and buzz cuts were replaced by bell bottoms and long hair. The swellness of Eisenhower was replaced by the idealism of hippies. Everything was up for reinvention.
By the 1970s, the idealism of the 1960s waned but the sex and drugs kept going strong, making for a sleazy decade. The 1970s were about the dark side of the new cultural freedoms, often to great artistic effect, like in movies like "Taxi Driver" or the music of the Sex Pistols. But just as often, the new cultural freedoms were taken too far, resulting in a sort of desperate, grainy, pea-green-and-mustard-colored depravity. The decade was a like a 30-year-old guy who is still partying like he did in his college days. There are still a lot of interesting things to explore, but it all takes on a sadder cast, gaining an undercurrent of dashed aspirations, of hanging on too long, of needing more and more stimulation to get the same old feeling.
In the 1980s, the baby boomers switched back to the clean, family-friendly ethos of the 1950s. Children were again central to culture. Movies were Spielberg instead of Scorsese. Music was Michael Jackson instead of Led Zeppelin. "The Cosby Show" replaced "All in the Family." Shameless consumerism was back in a big, shiny way. This time, the self-indulgence that characterizes baby boomers translated into a lust for money instead of sex and drugs.
As the baby boomers finally receded from a central place in culture in the 1990s, their children, Generation X, made their mark. This time, the self-indulgence that had characterized each of the last three decades was criticized, if not exactly overturned. Grunge rejected consumerism. Liberal idealism was again on the rise. Irony replaced sentimentality. It was time for independent film, fancy coffee, and flannel shirts. I don't know if this attitude lasted the whole decade, but if you had to pick one ethos from the 1990s, I think this would be it.
And then you have the Aughts, from 2000-2009, which were ... what? Terrorism and Bush dominated politics, but I don't really have a good idea of what the culture at large was. I can't give you iconic movies or TV shows or music. It just seems like there was a lot of everything. Am I wrong here? I suspect I am -- I suspect I'm sort of like baby boomers in the 1990s, to old to be relevant or even terribly aware. Any ideas?
For instance, the 1950s were a time of delirious, family-friendly, button-down conformity, celebrating, in a very PG-rated way, a sudden surplus after decades of depression and war. It was about cheerful bouncy-haired housewives in impeccable dresses delighting in their ironing, while their gray-suited and gray-fedora-ed husbands with square jaws stopped at bars for cocktails on the way back from their jobs in insurance. Children in coonskin caps were wowed by musicals and cowboy movies, and the dark underbelly of life was carefully sequestered from view.
Again, this is a necessarily oversimplified view. I realize that this does not at all describe the situation for African-Americans under the thumb of Jim Crow, for example. This is more the image of the decade as it wanted to be seen.
The 1960s represented a dramatic overthrow of the 1950s, as those kids ditched their coonskin caps in favor of sex, drugs, and political awareness. Baby boomers experienced their youthful rebellion phase in a big, dramatic way. Bland conformity was replaced by wild experimentation. Patti Page was replaced by Janis Joplin. Tucked-in shirts and buzz cuts were replaced by bell bottoms and long hair. The swellness of Eisenhower was replaced by the idealism of hippies. Everything was up for reinvention.
By the 1970s, the idealism of the 1960s waned but the sex and drugs kept going strong, making for a sleazy decade. The 1970s were about the dark side of the new cultural freedoms, often to great artistic effect, like in movies like "Taxi Driver" or the music of the Sex Pistols. But just as often, the new cultural freedoms were taken too far, resulting in a sort of desperate, grainy, pea-green-and-mustard-colored depravity. The decade was a like a 30-year-old guy who is still partying like he did in his college days. There are still a lot of interesting things to explore, but it all takes on a sadder cast, gaining an undercurrent of dashed aspirations, of hanging on too long, of needing more and more stimulation to get the same old feeling.
In the 1980s, the baby boomers switched back to the clean, family-friendly ethos of the 1950s. Children were again central to culture. Movies were Spielberg instead of Scorsese. Music was Michael Jackson instead of Led Zeppelin. "The Cosby Show" replaced "All in the Family." Shameless consumerism was back in a big, shiny way. This time, the self-indulgence that characterizes baby boomers translated into a lust for money instead of sex and drugs.
As the baby boomers finally receded from a central place in culture in the 1990s, their children, Generation X, made their mark. This time, the self-indulgence that had characterized each of the last three decades was criticized, if not exactly overturned. Grunge rejected consumerism. Liberal idealism was again on the rise. Irony replaced sentimentality. It was time for independent film, fancy coffee, and flannel shirts. I don't know if this attitude lasted the whole decade, but if you had to pick one ethos from the 1990s, I think this would be it.
And then you have the Aughts, from 2000-2009, which were ... what? Terrorism and Bush dominated politics, but I don't really have a good idea of what the culture at large was. I can't give you iconic movies or TV shows or music. It just seems like there was a lot of everything. Am I wrong here? I suspect I am -- I suspect I'm sort of like baby boomers in the 1990s, to old to be relevant or even terribly aware. Any ideas?
Monday, March 11, 2013
My Hard-Hitting Critique of Flags
I love flags. Even if they're kinda useless nowadays. In the days before people could read, they had very practical uses: Flags were the only way to identify yourself as coming from a particular country. People also couldn't talk or hear in those days, so all communication was done through flags. Every nobleman had a flagbearer who would carry about 5,000 different flags, one for each word in the English language at the time. Even the best flag-waver would take about a half hour in between each word to shuffle through his flag collection and find the next flag, so each sentence took about a day. Lots of awkward pauses in those days. If you were a peasant and couldn't afford a flagbearer, you would communicate through punches to the face.
No, not really! Ha ha ha. But flags were a lot more of a practical necessity in those days. And people didn't get all "sacred-relic"-y about their country's flag like they do now. True story: Few people in the United States saw a single American flag for many years after it was adopted, because it really wasn't seen as being terribly important. Several years after its adoption, Ben Franklin was quoted as describing the flag wrong, saying it had 13 stripes of red, white and blue instead of red and white. He'd likely seen one or two by then, but just wasn't a big thing at the time. They certainly didn't worry about flag being burnt or touching the ground or being wrapped around penises or whatever people are upset about today. That whole farcically overwrought and overcomplicated flag-folding ceremony was created in the 1970s. Point is, only recently have Americans been all spazzy about the flag.
But anyway, flags are fun. And the American flag is the funnest. It really is the best flag, and I say that not just because I'm a flag-waving, jingoistic, xenophobic white supremacist. It's a unique flag, yet not bizarre. There's lots of good symbolism in there -- the 50 stars for the 50 states, the 13 stripes for the 13 colonies, the white for white people, the red for the blood of white people, the blue for the blood of rich white people. And it's nice-looking too. Here it is:
I bet it's immediately recognizable to just about everyone in the world. In the marketing biz, we call that "good branding." Then we feel icky for using the word "branding," and we reevaluate our choices in life. Then we realize that we have no discernable talent of any kind, so marketing was basically our only option. Then we cry all the way to the bank.
And I really think that should be the number-one qualification for a flag. Attractiveness is important too, but number one in my book is recognizability. If it's easy to remember that a certain flag stands for a certain country, then it's a good flag.
So what would be a counterexample? Basically every flag in Europe. European countries suck at making flags, much as they suck in creating health-care systems, moral values, and people. (Remember, I'm a jingoistic xenophobe.) Pop quiz, hot shot: What country proudly (?) bears this standard atop their mighty whorehouses and "coffeeshops"?
Nope, not France -- France has the same exact colors, except its stripes are vertical instead of horizontal. It's Holland, or, as it's actually called, the Netherlands. What, you didn't recognize it? Maybe because it looks almost exactly like every other goddamn flag in Europe?
Here's another pop quiz: what so-called "country" is so perpetually ashamed of itself that it created this flag, apparently in the hope that they would be mistaken for other countries and that no one would notice them ever again?
You guessed it, it's the world's worst country, Luxembourg. Luxembourg and the Netherlands are about 100 miles apart, folks. The Netherlands was so unoriginal that it did the tri-color thing, like every other European country, and used the same colors as France -- and then Luxem-goddamn-bourg upped the ante for unoriginality to the stratosphere by using the same flag as its neighbor! They just made one color slightly lighter! That's so unoriginal that it's almost amazingly original!
So both those flags are absolute failures. People who aren't Joe Pettigrew will never come across the Luxembourg flag and be like, "Oh yeah, Luxembourg's in the house!" They will instead be all "Is that France's flag? No wait, its stripes are vertical. Eh, it's probably one of those crappy European countries that doesn't even try to pretend that it has enough national pride to make a flag that normal people (i.e., not Joe) can recognize." It's like if the Netherlands had instead called itself Franceland, and then Luxembourg had called itself Francelande.
So where are the good flags? Not Africa, I'll tell you that. As if it wasn't bad enough that they have so many black people there (reminder: I am a racist), their flags are even worse than Europe's. They all use the same freakin' colors, and just arrange them slightly differently. For instance, here's Ghana:
I know, it's like, SO Ghana, isn't it? You think Ghana, and you think about a star, with red, yellow and green stripes. You would never look at that and be all, oh, hey, Guinea-Bissau! However, if you saw this flag ...
... you'd be all, "oh, snap, it's Guinea-Bissau!" A star with red, yellow and green stripes! And it's so symbolic the way one of the stipes is vertical. People in Guinea-Bissau are known for walking while vertical. It's kind of the thing down there.
And you know, my farcical "Franceland" thing is actually the reality here, because look at Guinea's flag:
Sigh. So you have countries called "Guinea" and "Guinea-Bissau." Already, you're starting with a big similarity problem right there. Then these countries each choose almost the same flag. It's like identical twins who dress the same. Don't you guys want to even try to carve out your own identities? If not, then hell, we're wasting time and money keeping you guys as separate countries. We need to conserve ambassadors and embassy buildings -- did you not you see the Al Gore movie? You're wasting valuable paper and chairs at U.N. meetings by insisting on being different countries.
Now there's a freakin' flag! It's got that kick-ass shield and those spears in the middle, plus a bunch of leaves or pinecones or Tribbles or whatever those things are. Swaziland has no self-esteem problems: With this flag, they're saying to me, "Hey, we're Swaziland, and if you don't like it, we will stab you!" As opposed to Luxembourg or Guinea, who are all "ooh, colors are pretty."
Yeah, buddy! The people at Nepal said "Hey guys, why don't we innovate? Why don't we break the paradigm and promote a brand identity of young, hip, different, EXTREME?!" So that's what they did, and they have since become the market leader in Nepalese products.
No, not really! Ha ha ha. But flags were a lot more of a practical necessity in those days. And people didn't get all "sacred-relic"-y about their country's flag like they do now. True story: Few people in the United States saw a single American flag for many years after it was adopted, because it really wasn't seen as being terribly important. Several years after its adoption, Ben Franklin was quoted as describing the flag wrong, saying it had 13 stripes of red, white and blue instead of red and white. He'd likely seen one or two by then, but just wasn't a big thing at the time. They certainly didn't worry about flag being burnt or touching the ground or being wrapped around penises or whatever people are upset about today. That whole farcically overwrought and overcomplicated flag-folding ceremony was created in the 1970s. Point is, only recently have Americans been all spazzy about the flag.
But anyway, flags are fun. And the American flag is the funnest. It really is the best flag, and I say that not just because I'm a flag-waving, jingoistic, xenophobic white supremacist. It's a unique flag, yet not bizarre. There's lots of good symbolism in there -- the 50 stars for the 50 states, the 13 stripes for the 13 colonies, the white for white people, the red for the blood of white people, the blue for the blood of rich white people. And it's nice-looking too. Here it is:
I bet it's immediately recognizable to just about everyone in the world. In the marketing biz, we call that "good branding." Then we feel icky for using the word "branding," and we reevaluate our choices in life. Then we realize that we have no discernable talent of any kind, so marketing was basically our only option. Then we cry all the way to the bank.
And I really think that should be the number-one qualification for a flag. Attractiveness is important too, but number one in my book is recognizability. If it's easy to remember that a certain flag stands for a certain country, then it's a good flag.
So what would be a counterexample? Basically every flag in Europe. European countries suck at making flags, much as they suck in creating health-care systems, moral values, and people. (Remember, I'm a jingoistic xenophobe.) Pop quiz, hot shot: What country proudly (?) bears this standard atop their mighty whorehouses and "coffeeshops"?
Nope, not France -- France has the same exact colors, except its stripes are vertical instead of horizontal. It's Holland, or, as it's actually called, the Netherlands. What, you didn't recognize it? Maybe because it looks almost exactly like every other goddamn flag in Europe?
Here's another pop quiz: what so-called "country" is so perpetually ashamed of itself that it created this flag, apparently in the hope that they would be mistaken for other countries and that no one would notice them ever again?
You guessed it, it's the world's worst country, Luxembourg. Luxembourg and the Netherlands are about 100 miles apart, folks. The Netherlands was so unoriginal that it did the tri-color thing, like every other European country, and used the same colors as France -- and then Luxem-goddamn-bourg upped the ante for unoriginality to the stratosphere by using the same flag as its neighbor! They just made one color slightly lighter! That's so unoriginal that it's almost amazingly original!
So both those flags are absolute failures. People who aren't Joe Pettigrew will never come across the Luxembourg flag and be like, "Oh yeah, Luxembourg's in the house!" They will instead be all "Is that France's flag? No wait, its stripes are vertical. Eh, it's probably one of those crappy European countries that doesn't even try to pretend that it has enough national pride to make a flag that normal people (i.e., not Joe) can recognize." It's like if the Netherlands had instead called itself Franceland, and then Luxembourg had called itself Francelande.
So where are the good flags? Not Africa, I'll tell you that. As if it wasn't bad enough that they have so many black people there (reminder: I am a racist), their flags are even worse than Europe's. They all use the same freakin' colors, and just arrange them slightly differently. For instance, here's Ghana:
I know, it's like, SO Ghana, isn't it? You think Ghana, and you think about a star, with red, yellow and green stripes. You would never look at that and be all, oh, hey, Guinea-Bissau! However, if you saw this flag ...
... you'd be all, "oh, snap, it's Guinea-Bissau!" A star with red, yellow and green stripes! And it's so symbolic the way one of the stipes is vertical. People in Guinea-Bissau are known for walking while vertical. It's kind of the thing down there.
And you know, my farcical "Franceland" thing is actually the reality here, because look at Guinea's flag:
Sigh. So you have countries called "Guinea" and "Guinea-Bissau." Already, you're starting with a big similarity problem right there. Then these countries each choose almost the same flag. It's like identical twins who dress the same. Don't you guys want to even try to carve out your own identities? If not, then hell, we're wasting time and money keeping you guys as separate countries. We need to conserve ambassadors and embassy buildings -- did you not you see the Al Gore movie? You're wasting valuable paper and chairs at U.N. meetings by insisting on being different countries.
You know, maybe I actually hate flags. Flags seem to willfully contradict my main qualifications: that they be memorable, unique, and blatantly symbolic. I know that the colors in the African flags are symbolic of Pan-Africanism, but couldn't you think of better symbols than just colors? Colors are very busy things: They are on everything in the world, and each color can symbolize life, death, nature, freedom, ham, and every other possible thing imaginable depending on who you are and where you're from. Can't you go with more concrete and obvious symbols? Can't you be more like Swaziland?
Now there's a freakin' flag! It's got that kick-ass shield and those spears in the middle, plus a bunch of leaves or pinecones or Tribbles or whatever those things are. Swaziland has no self-esteem problems: With this flag, they're saying to me, "Hey, we're Swaziland, and if you don't like it, we will stab you!" As opposed to Luxembourg or Guinea, who are all "ooh, colors are pretty."
Plus, I think it has a nice look to it. The above representation is not a great one -- usually they use a nice light blue that goes well with the other colors and makes it look like something that a professional artist may have created. I mean seriously, imagine what awesome country flags professional artists could create. They would be attractive, recognizable, unique -- why instead, did most countries just pick a few colors and smack 'em together, with nary a thought toward aesthetics?
But anyway, the all-time greatest flag is Nepal's. They really knew how to "think outside the box" ... literally! (By the way, I am available to speak at your next corporate event. My presentation, "Marketing Lessons from Flag Design: Think Outside the Same Goddamn Boxes of Color That Everyone Else Uses," has inspired countless people to improve their ROI efficiency and upflow their innovationability. Contact me today!)
Yeah, buddy! The people at Nepal said "Hey guys, why don't we innovate? Why don't we break the paradigm and promote a brand identity of young, hip, different, EXTREME?!" So that's what they did, and they have since become the market leader in Nepalese products.
And it's symbolic, too. The sun represents the fact that they have sunlight there. The sun on top of the crescent symbolizes the fact that their Muslims think the sun rises and sets just for them. And the whole shape of the flag symbolizes the extremely pointy breasts that all Nepalese women have.
But I should emphasize that to have a passable flag, you don't have to go as far as Nepal did. You can just put some object in the middle. Mexico's flag (which you should know well, so I'm not putting it in here) is a fine one, I think. Nothing earth-shattering -- basically just Italy's flag with a bird in the middle -- but it's enough to make it memorable. If the Netherlands had stuck a picture in the middle of its flag of a man smoking a joint while being serviced by a prostitute, I would have no problem with it whatsoever.
(For further flag-looking-at: Other good flags include the Marshall Islands, Kenya, Kosovo, Dominica, Seychelles, Montenegro, and St. Lucia. Bad ones include Mali, Lithuana, Hungary, Poland, Indonesia and Monaco (same exact flag for those two), and all those goddamn Scandinavian countries that I can never keep straight. Sweden I can get every time. The rest I can never remember.)
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Ed Dykhuizen, "Man Thinking About a Man Thinking About a Worm" c 1979
Ed Dykhuizen, "Man Thinking About a Man Thinking About a Worm" c 1979: This seminal work shocked the world of preschool art with its searing critique of the indulgent self-reflection typical to contemporary art. The first man, supine with hauntingly glassy eyes, is left catatonic and armless (symbolizing an inability to function in society) as his thoughts burst with a giant Everyman -- an Everyman who, despite striding purposefully, is also in deep contemplation, of a worm. The worm represents the end point of such self-reflection: the ultimate end of all men, which is to become decaying matter fed to vermin.
Thus, the "examined life" so extolled by the likes of Plato is revealed to be a not only futile but also incapacitating, rendering the examiner paralyzed with the realization that all his strivings, both intellectual and physical, are but fodder for worms. The prominent navels in both figures provide the last, haunting, mocking vestige of the only time that both that Man could have felt a completeness, could have been blissfully ignorant of the true nature of existence -- while being sustained both physically and spiritually through an umbilical cord in the womb.
Dykhuizen, an artist always unwilling to explain his pieces, described the work with a typical understatement: "It's a picture of a man thinking about a man thinking about a worm. Can I have a cookie?" Displayed is a reproduction in the medium of needlepoint by the artist's grandma. The original has unfortunately been lost.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Will Minorities Ever Vote Republican?
A dude on the radio was talking about whether Republicans ever stood a chance of attracting minority voters. He said that, in the 2012 elections, exactly 0.00% of people with melanin voted for Mitt Romney. Sightings of black Republicans have been reported, but after expert investigation, they always turn out to be John Boehner coming out of a tanning salon. (Zing! I am Jay Leno. Except not funny. So, Jay Leno.)
In passing, the guy on the radio mentioned that part of the problem might be the whole “taking our country back” attitude of recent Republican rhetoric. I wish he’d delved further into how that attitude is perceived by members of racial minorities. Speaking as a black man, I will now try to do so.
Full disclosure: I am not a black man. I’m not even Asian, and how hard is that? There are literally billions of them. In fact, in the jury pool of life, I have been given the easiest possible assignment, the equivalent of a last-minute plea deal on the first case of the day that sends us all home before lunch -- I am a white man in the United States at the apex of its self-indulgence, after it obviates the need for any physical labor of any kind, but before it destroys its environment and devolves into a society in which mohawked thugs kill each other for gas and food. (That’s scheduled for next Tuesday, by the way. Check your email.)
But, like any good white man, I’m fascinated by African-American culture. It started in high school when I saw Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and started listening to Public Enemy. It became a bit more learned when I would skip gym class to sit in the library and read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” which is perhaps the nerdiest teenage rebellion in history.
And through my various vicarious experiences then and since, I feel like I have gained some small measure of understanding of the perspective of minorities in America. And I can imagine that the “taking our country back” rhetoric is especially off-putting to anyone who isn’t white.
To be clear, I’m not accusing Republicans of having conscious racial motivations for their feelings. I don’t go in for the idea that conservatives hate Obama just because he’s black -- I remember the similarly irrational hatred they had for Clinton.
But I do think that when they talk about “our country” and “real Americans” and etc., they express a very distinct “us vs. them” dialectic, where there is “us,” the “normal” Americans, and there is the “other,” that is threatening “us” and pushing “our” country away from what we’re comfortable with.
Every political movement is always “us vs. them” to some extent. But when it takes this extreme cast, where no common ground is possible with the evil “other,” I think it reminds minorities of, well, most everything they have experienced in this country’s history. Racial relations have gotten better, but still, in small, subtle ways (and occasionally not so subtle), white is “normal” and black or Asian or Latino is “other” -- an “other” that threatens “us” by taking “our” jobs, by living in “our” communities, and in general, by changing the country that “we” feel comfortable with.
I think that when you’re a member of a racial minority, you become especially sensitive to this attitude. You get very attuned to signals that you might be unwelcome or generally seen as strange because of your facial features, because of the incredible emotional pain that that causes. I think this "us vs. them" conservative attitude qualifies as a warning sign, regardless of whether it is intended to.
I know conservatives would react vociferously to this idea, partially because they tend to react vociferously to everything, but also because there is no more weighted accusation nowadays than racism. They’d argue that their enemy is liberals, not minorities. And they’d be right. Again, I don’t think the racial exclusion is intentional.
But my point is that that’s just a shift in the focus of the same lens. It’s still that irrational fear of change, regardless of whether that change materially affects them in any way, that has characterized conservatism in this country since the days of civil rights. It’s an unfounded feeling of victimization, which is especially incomprehensible when it comes from the people with every advantage and almost all the wealth and power.
Now, on the heels of defeat, Republicans are trying to mend their ways, by, for example, getting less insane about immigration. But that's like a husband who has been abusing you for forty years suddenly buying you flowers and expecting it to smooth everything over. There needs to be some radical change, and it needs to be sustained over a long period of time.
There are other issues of course, such as the fact that members of racial minorities might not have the same paranoia about the federal government that conservatives do. But again, even that might be a reminder of the "state's rights" and "nullification" arguments that Southerners have used against the federal government's intervention first in slavery and then in civil rights.
It may be a post-racial society in some ways. Overt discrimination is rarer, and it is thoroughly socially unacceptable to express prejudice publicly. But the same mindsets linger from the days when race was the central issue in American life. Republicans will need to undergo a more fundamental change in the way they view this country before they'll ever win over minority votes.
In passing, the guy on the radio mentioned that part of the problem might be the whole “taking our country back” attitude of recent Republican rhetoric. I wish he’d delved further into how that attitude is perceived by members of racial minorities. Speaking as a black man, I will now try to do so.
Full disclosure: I am not a black man. I’m not even Asian, and how hard is that? There are literally billions of them. In fact, in the jury pool of life, I have been given the easiest possible assignment, the equivalent of a last-minute plea deal on the first case of the day that sends us all home before lunch -- I am a white man in the United States at the apex of its self-indulgence, after it obviates the need for any physical labor of any kind, but before it destroys its environment and devolves into a society in which mohawked thugs kill each other for gas and food. (That’s scheduled for next Tuesday, by the way. Check your email.)
But, like any good white man, I’m fascinated by African-American culture. It started in high school when I saw Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and started listening to Public Enemy. It became a bit more learned when I would skip gym class to sit in the library and read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” which is perhaps the nerdiest teenage rebellion in history.
And through my various vicarious experiences then and since, I feel like I have gained some small measure of understanding of the perspective of minorities in America. And I can imagine that the “taking our country back” rhetoric is especially off-putting to anyone who isn’t white.
To be clear, I’m not accusing Republicans of having conscious racial motivations for their feelings. I don’t go in for the idea that conservatives hate Obama just because he’s black -- I remember the similarly irrational hatred they had for Clinton.
But I do think that when they talk about “our country” and “real Americans” and etc., they express a very distinct “us vs. them” dialectic, where there is “us,” the “normal” Americans, and there is the “other,” that is threatening “us” and pushing “our” country away from what we’re comfortable with.
Every political movement is always “us vs. them” to some extent. But when it takes this extreme cast, where no common ground is possible with the evil “other,” I think it reminds minorities of, well, most everything they have experienced in this country’s history. Racial relations have gotten better, but still, in small, subtle ways (and occasionally not so subtle), white is “normal” and black or Asian or Latino is “other” -- an “other” that threatens “us” by taking “our” jobs, by living in “our” communities, and in general, by changing the country that “we” feel comfortable with.
I think that when you’re a member of a racial minority, you become especially sensitive to this attitude. You get very attuned to signals that you might be unwelcome or generally seen as strange because of your facial features, because of the incredible emotional pain that that causes. I think this "us vs. them" conservative attitude qualifies as a warning sign, regardless of whether it is intended to.
I know conservatives would react vociferously to this idea, partially because they tend to react vociferously to everything, but also because there is no more weighted accusation nowadays than racism. They’d argue that their enemy is liberals, not minorities. And they’d be right. Again, I don’t think the racial exclusion is intentional.
But my point is that that’s just a shift in the focus of the same lens. It’s still that irrational fear of change, regardless of whether that change materially affects them in any way, that has characterized conservatism in this country since the days of civil rights. It’s an unfounded feeling of victimization, which is especially incomprehensible when it comes from the people with every advantage and almost all the wealth and power.
Now, on the heels of defeat, Republicans are trying to mend their ways, by, for example, getting less insane about immigration. But that's like a husband who has been abusing you for forty years suddenly buying you flowers and expecting it to smooth everything over. There needs to be some radical change, and it needs to be sustained over a long period of time.
There are other issues of course, such as the fact that members of racial minorities might not have the same paranoia about the federal government that conservatives do. But again, even that might be a reminder of the "state's rights" and "nullification" arguments that Southerners have used against the federal government's intervention first in slavery and then in civil rights.
It may be a post-racial society in some ways. Overt discrimination is rarer, and it is thoroughly socially unacceptable to express prejudice publicly. But the same mindsets linger from the days when race was the central issue in American life. Republicans will need to undergo a more fundamental change in the way they view this country before they'll ever win over minority votes.
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