GET INFORMED

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So according to Hollywood, I should love things like “Who's Your Caddy?” and Kevin Hart stand-up movies. I couldn't possibly have a complex series of groups of which I consider myself a member, and thus have an accordingly complex taste in movies. We're all, at most, three things, usually an age range, a gender, and some third attribute, sometimes religion or perhaps location (urban/rural). But all of us, in reality, are myriad categories and descriptors shoved together uneasily to make a living, breathing adult. [READ MORE]

“2 Broke Girls” is fine. Kat Dennings has been funny in various things since “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” and Beth Behrs does her job very well. I do not understand the horse (because, wtf?), or the fact that, as annoying as hipsters are, the non-character-based jokes are so heavily hipster-based, but it's fine. Most of the time. If they made a show about, ya know, two broke girls who were not that much alike and trying to get by, it might even be a good show. But it's not. Because of the diner. [READ MORE]

Remember Shania Twain? She was huge was for a while there. Did you know that her album “Come On Over” sold 40 million copies worldwide? That's a lot. She had a few albums before and after that. But no one talks about her now. I'm sure she does shows every so often. And then goes to sleep on the pile of money she's going to make from headlining in Las Vegas. [READ MORE]

I think, if you live in a place where you walk out of your house, drive to work, and drive back home (or are driven to each place), it's pretty easy to think of impoverished people as a thing that only exists on your television (or perhaps online or at the movies). If you don't engage with them, see them, or remember your time as one of them, I can see why you might forget about them pretty easily. I'm thus not confused why people in various pockets of the country (and the world, but it's here that I'm writing about) find the concerns of those without means not to be particularly important. And I speak not of people who want to merely reform or change social aid – there are certainly valid points to be made about how it should be accomplished and how much we can currently afford – but people whose kneejerk reaction is simply, “Why should we bother to help them?” [READ MORE]

So here is the second half of the new year posts. This one is more traditionally resolution-based, so I need not belabor the point.

What will you publicly challenge yourself to do by year's end? Something specific. Not general “I wanna get in shape.” But specific. [READ MORE]

So let's start the year off simply and positively.

Tell me: what events (both personal and public) are you looking forward to in 2012? List as many as you like.

I'll start, and I'll do it in chronological order.

My (short) trip to Florida in a few weeks, and my (short) trip to NorCal a few months later. [READ MORE]

As we come to a close on this year of “Informed Instigation,” we have a lot to reflect on for the issues that tend to draw our attention.

Same-sex marriage came to my state. DADT was repealed. Iraq's ending.

But we, collectively, have no money. Or, we're spending money we don't have, while some continue to rake it undeservedly. It pisses people off, and rightfully so. The word “occupy” has turned into a joke, but it started from legitimate concerns that we're all still talking about in one way or another. [READ MORE]

Note: This is the penultimate post of 2011. Haven't taken a break in a while, so next Tuesday will be the final post of the year.

So, as we all know from, uh, existing and from using the internet, pop culture can be extremely divisive.
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There is nothing progressive about Rick Perry (and nothing positive, either). So, don't start thinking that I'm about to say anything kind about him.

But when he released this absolutely ridiculous ad last week, it showed me something. First of all, that youtube, a den of complete idiocy much of the time, can still have a soul on occasion, as the ratio of likes to dislikes on the video is something like 1 to 80. And second, that we have at the very least reached the point where someone can make a desperate, stupid ad like that and immediately be tarred and feathered. And, most amusingly, parodied. [READ MORE]