The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch
Blog Categories: Politics | News | Music | Chow | Do This! | Media | TV | Arts and Culture | Snapshot | Cinema | Fun in General | Just Plain Dumb | more categories»
Just Plain Dumb
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Just Plain Dumb Oh, Those Mayans and Their Constantly Changing Calendars
Posted by Brian J. Pedersen on Thu, May 10, 2012 at 3:00 PM
We all suddenly have a lot more time to complete our bucket lists. That being said, I am cancelling my plans to cliff jump off Lincoln's head on Mount Rushmore this weekend.
According to online science publication LiveScience, the discovery of the world's oldest known version of the ancient Mayan calender has been found. And, thankfully — or sadly, if like me you'd restructured all your debt to be due in January 2013 — the world won't end on Dec. 21, 2012.
Instead, researchers say, the world is going to go one for a few more billion, trillion or octillion years, which means there's plenty of time for Lionsgate to greenlight my screenplay for Madea Wins The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.
So, if you were planning all of your upcoming doings around the destruction of Earth in a little over seven months, time to start finding things to fill up your future schedule.
And time for Arizona Daily Star parent Lee Enterprises to start thinking of another way to put off making those debt payments they keep finding ways to not have to make good on.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Just Plain Dumb Today in Reverse-Racism: Does Obama Hate MCA? (Answer: No.)
Posted by David Mendez on Mon, May 7, 2012 at 4:00 PM
Joseph Curl of the Washington Times believes that Barack Obama must hate Jewish rappers.
Now, half-white Barack Obama (exactly my age) didn’t say a word, even though he was talking to college kids that day, but make no mistake, MCA was no Jay-Z or Kanye West. This guy was the real deal, groundbreaker, up from his bootstraps, Brooklyn boy made good. Funny the “coolest president ever” doesn’t say a word about the passing of MCA. Weird and kinda sad, actually.
I mean...I guess? The Beastie Boys, while a fantastic musical group, haven't been making waves at this point in their career. "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two" has sold 344,000 copies since its release last year. More than a third of that was a result of its first-week sales.
But I see where he's coming from, and I kinda understand his position. Up until this point:
The president took time from his busy schedule to comment on the passing of black musicians. When Whitney Houston, a longtime crack addict, died this year, the White House put out a statement. “I know that [Mr. Obama‘s] thoughts and prayers are with her family, especially her daughter,” press secretary Jay Carney said. “It’s a tragedy to lose somebody so talented at such a young age.”And when accused pedophile and drug addict Michael Jackson died in 2009, the White House weighed in with the president’s thoughts. “He said to me that obviously, Michael Jackson was a spectacular performer, a music icon,” spokesman Roberet Gibbs said. “And his condolences went out to the Jackson family and to fans that mourned his loss.”
For comparison's sake, let's look at the best selling records of each artist:
Jackson's "Thriller" was certified by the RIAA as having gone platinum 29 times.
Houston's soundtrack to "The Bodyguard" is 17 times platinum.
The Beastie Boys' best-seller, "License to Ill," went platinum 9 times.
Jackson, despite the regrettable way his life ended, was unquestionably an entertainment icon.
Houston was, without question, the most significant female vocalist of her generation. She was set to make a late-career comeback with a film, Sparkle, that's now set to make millions off of her memory later this year.
Adam Yauch, while a great musician, is best remembered as part of a whole — a significant, irreplaceable part, but still only a part of the Beastie Boys' rapping three-man weave. He's no icon, just a "Brooklyn boy made good."
Furthering a political agenda with his death cheapens his life. Making subtle accusations of racism toward our president twists that agenda into something ugly.
Just Plain Dumb World of Puns Explodes Over Hot Dog Hooker Case
Posted by Dan Gibson on Mon, May 7, 2012 at 11:00 AM
So many choices...relish, buns, wieners. It's almost too much.
Catherine Scalia, 45, was arrested Thursday night when she offered the off-menu special to an undercover cop and took him back to her East Rockaway pad for some home cooking.[...]
An undercover cop approached the stand Thursday and bought two hot dogs and water for $5 before the “specials” were announced.
Scalia took the cop back to her place and performed a striptease for $100 before unveiling the main course, police said.
“She agreed to manually stimulate him for an additional $50,” said Nassau County Police spokesman Kevin Smith.
She was slapped with cuffs instead.
[...]
“What do you want? It was a bad hot-dog day. I sold maybe $5 worth of hot dogs that day,” she told The Post after that arrest.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Just Plain Dumb Here's a Free One for You Birthers
Posted by Dan Gibson on Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 9:00 AM
Great news for Steve Carter, a Philadelphia man who realized he was actually a missing child, whose biological mother disappeared taking him from his biological father.
Even better news for birthers, since part of Carter's journey involves a post-dated, somewhat fraudulent Hawaiian birth certificate. Now I don't know what to believe.
Carter always knew he was adopted, but when got older, he started to wonder who his biological parents were. That curiosity and a simple web search took him on a journey that would change his life and even now, there are parts of his story that remain a mystery.While he's always been happy with his adoptive parents, something never felt quite right. Carter knew he was adopted from a Hawaiian orphanage when he was 4. But his birth certificate was created almost a year after his birth and he was labeled half-native Hawaiian.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Just Plain Dumb You Think Your Boss Is Bad
Posted by Dan Gibson on Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:09 AM
It would appear that a New York woman was fired from her job at a car dealership largely because she was only re-hired for her kidney. Just a reminder that your work situation could always be worse. Happy Tuesday!
Monday, April 23, 2012
Just Plain Dumb So How About That Kony 2012?
Posted by David Mendez on Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:00 PM
- Dan Gibson
- As seen Downtown during Club Crawl
April 20 came and went — except for those who might have made their brownies too strong and are still feeling the effects.
But 4/20 was supposed to be about more than just pot this year — it was supposed to be the night that those supporting the Kony 2012 movement "covered the night," making Joseph Kony the most infamous person on the planet.
Kony, for the uninitiated, is the leader of the Ugandan resistance group, the Lord's Resistance Army, notable for the conscription of children into soldiers and the mass killing of Ugandans.
So, how'd the campaign do?
I normally don't care who's running for president but this year I'm definitely voting for that Kony guy #Kony2012
— Jason Faykosh (@Faykosh13) April 23, 2012
Good show, guys.
What about the local efforts, you ask? In Facebook one group, a member posted "Did we save Africa?" In another, a woman posts trying to confirm plans for Cover the Night — with no response.
To their credit, I did happen to see a few posters while wandering Fourth Avenue during Club Crawl©, but many of them were either so poorly printed as to obscure their images entirely, or had such poorly written messages that they undermined the campaign entirely.
Nationwide, Kony 2012 supporters took the most logical of actions: Defacing homes and vandalizing landmarks.
Sure, many of the above posts are facetious, but the fact that a movement that was sweeping the globe fell apart in a matter of months speaks to the power that this generation holds and squanders unthinkingly.
I think Kony 2012 and Cover the Night can be summed up in a paragraph from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's coverage: "A group of teenagers from Stanwood applied posters and stickers around the Pike Place Market. But some of their work was quickly undone by a security officer who followed them and pulled down the posters."
Sounds about right.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Politics / Just Plain Dumb America, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 5:00 PM
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post found this completely depressing chart in the archives of Pew Research somewhere. I know it's a little too easy to chortle at the ignorance of the American public, but I'm almost surprised Judge Joe Brown and Judge Reinhold didn't make the chart at this point.
Just Plain Dumb My Favorite Photo From Velveeta's Facebook Page
Posted by Dan Gibson on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 3:00 PM
There were other contenders, but this guy is clearly living the Velveeta lifestyle.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Music / Just Plain Dumb Ted Nugent Might Want to Be More Careful With His Words
Posted by Dan Gibson on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:11 AM
Oh, Uncle Ted. We'd love to see you perform at the Pima County Fair on April 28th, but you might end up in some secret detention facility if you don't tone down the rhetoric (bold added for emphasis):
”We’ve got four Supreme Court justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. Does everybody here know that four of the Supreme Court justices not only determined you don’t have the right to keep and bear arms, four Supreme Court justices signed their name to a declaration that Americans have no fundamental right to self-defense? That sounds like a stoned hippie. That doesn’t sound like a Supreme Court anything.” The musician went on to say: ”If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year."
[WSJ]
Monday, April 16, 2012
Music / Just Plain Dumb Press Releases People Think They Need to Send Me
Posted by Dan Gibson on Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 2:00 PM
Thank goodness. I was really concerned that a alt-rock musician that I hadn't thought about in a decade or so was jumping into a relationship with someone I've never heard of.
