116 is here. This is Tendown 117.
1. More Entertaining than the Oscars.
Not a full list of things more entertaining than the Oscars, I'm just the one dude and it's been a long week.
Instead, just one thing - a wall of reaction shots from Oscar losers throughout history.
Beyond Jim Rash punching upward at Angelina's leg, my favorite part of the Oscar talk was all of the plaudits given to Viola Davis for shedding her wig.
Tell us: Are you glad Davis rocked her natural locks at the Oscars?
It's a good trend, my assumption is that the Hollywood commentariat will look to extend the "all natural hair" value beyond just Viola Davis - no more wigs, weaves, extensions, Brazilian Blowouts, Heat Free Protein Bonds, Microtubes, Shrinkies, Swing Wefts, Chemical Free Highlights, or coloring of any type. It can't be that it's only Davis who needs to embrace her natural hair - so at next year's Oscars, ladies, don't be held capture by some type of normative idea of hair hegemony. You be who you are.
Cameron Diaz never looked better.
2. My New Favorite College Football Player
It's Joseph Williams from Virginia, hunger striking on behalf of university employees.
3. My Least Favorite Professional Athlete(s), At Least For This Week.
It's evolution denier Paul Azinger. and anti gay bigot Craig James.
4. Is Insulting Religion Protected Speech?
Apparently not in Pennsylvania.
5. Ryan Braun
One the elements of the largely manufactured PED crisis in baseball has been the inability of baseball fans who otherwise would be opposed to the war on drugs to fail to recognize that they've been conned by the morality police on the steroid issue.
Not conned is Charlie Pierce who hit two longstanding themes of mine this week:
Can someone seriously argue that it is ethical to take a drug to make a performance possible, but unethical to take a drug that makes that performance better? Isn't making a performance possible at all the ultimate performance enhancement?... Sports are rife with drugs. Without drugs of one sort or another, the NFL season would never begin, and the baseball season would end sometime in June owing to a lack of participating teams.
The steroid frenzy is of a sad piece with this history. It began, as all drug frenzies do, with a series of scare stories guaranteed to terrify the rubes. Then came the rush to pass laws and regulations without really thinking them through because this was The Greatest Crisis There Absolutely Ever Was. Then came all the people who made careers out of the laws and regulations prompted by the original frenzy. Then came all the reporters and commentators who got rich enabling the people most directly profiting from the frenzy and/or being professionally outraged on behalf of "the fans" but, really, only expressing their own anger at not being allowed to be 14 years old anymore.
6. Here's Our Current Economy:
Between 2009 and 2011, 88 percent of national income growth went to corporate profits, while just 1 percent went to wages.
I am, right now, a one issue voter. And that's my issue.
7. Why Did Don Imus Get Fired Again?
Imus made racially insensitive jokes a few years ago, right? Cost him his gig for awhile?
A half dozen years ago, Rush Limbaugh took what was most likely a sex tour of the Dominican Republic as he was found with a bottle of Viagra prescribed to someone else by Customs agents.
This week, Limbaugh called a law student the Republicans refused to hear testimony from at their 18th century contraception hearings a slut.
He then said she should be required to post sex tapes online. And demonstrated a curious understanding of how birth control pills work by explaining She's having sex so frequently that she can't afford all the birth-control pills that she needs. That's what she's saying." And also asked the musical question who bought your condoms in 6th grade?
And then apologized, saying he didn't mean a personal attack.
Which is reasonable, Limbaugh doesn't have anything personally against the law student, he hates women categorically. Unlike Santorum, who only hates women who have sex just because they feel like it.
More broadly on the contraceptive issue that a Santorum presidency would take head on (stop doing things in the sexual realm that you shouldn't be doing, so sayeth President Santorum) either we believe that our health care should be tied to employment for the vast majority of Americans or we believe that employers should be able to exercise "conscience" in determining what types of health coverage they are willing to kick in for - but when your ideology argues both, you deserve to be excluded from grown up talk. When you yell that health care for all would be tyranny and constantly use metaphors like "we're being made to bend over and grab our ankles for Obama" but that the government should be allowed to order forcible penetration of women who elected to have constitutionally protected abortions, maybe you'll work the rubes, but serious minded people know who you are.
8. Nipple Sized Hail
I spent the week on planes sandwiched around a 5 hour job interview.
I was in the area of the country hit by tornadoes; the town I was in was not really impacted, but there was a tornado warning during the end of my interview that required moving to a safe room on campus.
I didn't experience the unusually shaped hailstorm, but "nipple sized hail" was the phrase I heard from the local weather report upon waking up Wednesday morning.
The job's a big deal; I'm in the final four and this was the last round of the process. By next week's Tendown I should know. I did good; I should have; I've had essentially the same interview 4 times in the past few months. If I get this job I should be able to burn my resume for the foreseeable future.
9. The New MLB Wild Card Format
Sucks.
But had it been in place since the introduction of the WC in baseball it would have meant four additional playoff appearances for your San Francisco Giants.
10. And, of course, we end with...
Kelly Clarkson!
That's all for this time. I'll see you next time...if there is a next time.
Your pal,
Jim
