Cheat To Win

That, however, is not what the Steubenville story is ultimately about. It’s not about a rust-belt community suffering the woes of an enfeebled steel industry, and it’s not about how important it is for Steubenville to simply “get over” its ignominious moment in the national spotlight. It’s about a 16-year-old girl who was raped by two young men who thought that being good at throwing and catching an inflated ovoid meant that they had cultural carte blanche to behave however they wanted. Being good at a sport doesn’t entitle anyone to automatic public sympathy, and delving into our cultural sympathy reservoirs to bemoan the tragedy of a football player’s young career cut cruelly short does not make news coverage sensitive.

Maybe Richmond and Mays cried at their sentencing, fine. They should have cried. They should feel very fucking sorry for what they did, because it’s awful. We, however, should not feel sorry for them because a university will most likely not give them a scholarship to play a game. The sooner this country comes to terms with that fact, the more civilized and empathetic a place it will be.

I can’t seem to wrap my head around this coverage regarding Richmond and Mays’ guilty verdicts yesterday.  I realize that teenagers/people make mistakes and that many people are disheartened when an athlete turns out to be flesh-and-bone mortal.  I even understand our modern society’s rejection of black and white views on morality, and the paradoxical need for criminals who are absolute monsters.

All of this aside, Doug Barry makes a great point in his piece from Jezebel: the important fact to take away from this trial is that these men are not somehow better people because they throw a football around for a few months a year.  These athletes not only sexually assaulted an unconscious and noncompliant girl, they mocked her.  They (and their friends) went out of their way to document her state and ridicule her.  If you ever find yourself sympathizing with these boys, please watch this one more time and steel yourself against the bullshit narrative our media has taken to these past several weeks.

People have wounds, and those wounds are painful. That doesn’t have shit to do with the weak concept of “taking offense.” If someone talks about Texas being a shitty state, I might “take offense” at that. Fine, whatever. All of us who like comedy are generally in agreement with the idea that “taking offense” is lame, and a comedian should be willing to “offend” whenever he or she wants to.

But causing pain is quite a different fucking matter. Your job as a comedian is to take us through pain, transcend pain, transform pain. And if you don’t get that, you are a fucking bully, and I’ve got zero time for bullies.

This is, hands down, the best response I have seen on the internet to Daniel Tosh and his reprehensible behavior the other night.  Jezebel also pointed out that people with significant talent CAN do this successfully…unfortunately Tosh is a pretty lackluster comedian.  Whatever talent he may have is highly questionable.

‎”Yeah, but we have a black president! Isn’t racism over?”

Okay. That’s probably the most racist thing you’ve said all day, imaginary amalgam of all the careless hipsters in the world. You know how you can tell that black people are still oppressed? Because black people are still oppressed. If you claim that you are not a racist person (or, at least, that you’re committed to working your ass off not to be one—which is really the best that any of us can promise), then you must believe that people are fundamentally born equal. So if that’s true, then in a vacuum, factors like skin color should have no effect on anyone’s success. Right? And therefore, if you really believe that all people are created equal, then when you see that drastic racial inequalities exist in the real world, the only thing that you could possibly conclude is that some external force is holding certain people back. Like…racism. Right? So congratulations! You believe in racism! Unless you don’t actually think that people are born equal. And if you don’t believe that people are born equal, then you’re a fucking racist.

Holy shit, Jezebel just slam dunked this post on “hipster racism” and how white people are oblivious to the subtleties of racism in our culture.  Well done, Lindy West.

Well, this is upsetting. According to a new study, people can’t tell the difference between quotes from British “lad mags” and interviews with convicted rapists. And given the choice, men are actually more likely to agree with the rapists.

According to a study published by the University of Surrey, magazines like FHM and Maxim are indiscernible from the interviews of convicted rapists.

Who else wants to create a media literacy curriculum with me?

Source: Jezebel

Between heroically saving Richard Branson’s mother from a fire, acting humble about it later, and speaking out in favor of naturalaging, Kate Winslet has been wowing us a lot recently. It’s unclear if she’s just naturally awesome, or is already atoning for starring in that new Roman Polanski film, but we have another charming tale to add to the list. She tells V magazine:

“I like being in the city. I like the diversity that my children are exposed to every day. I love the way their brains work. Joe turns to me the other day and says ‘One day I will have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, darling. Which would you prefer?’ And I said ‘My Love, that would be entirely up to you, and it doesn’t make any difference to me.’ But that he knows! It’s a real privilege. Talk about the best education.”

I think we can all agree that Kate Winslet is awesome.  I think we can also agree that Jezebel/Gawker Media regularly prints misleading headlines and neglects downright ignores journalistic integrity.

Keep your thoughts with Norway, tell everyone about it all the time if you want to, direct every one of your Facebook friends to donate to the Red Cross, but chastising others for not devoting enough social networking space to a greater tragedy doesn’t help the Norwegians, it helps you look like a sanctimonious jerk.

Wait, what’s going on? I can’t find a problem with a Jezebel article?