News | Everything Wrong with Today's Youth

The Volkswagen Super Bowl Commercial & Vainglorious White People

By James Kalìwæ on Friday, February 1st, 2013

Some people just love being offended. I hate people like that.

I bring this up because Volkswagen posted a commercial on Youtube which is slated to run during the 2013 Super Bowl. I learned of it while watching the news. While it should have been considered newsworthy on the merits of its humor and charm, that was not the reason it was being covered by the 24-hour news ~~cycle~~ clusterfuck. It was being covered because there are allegedly a lot of people out there who found it very racist.

It is not racist. But before I elaborate on why, you should watch the commercial for yourself. Provided you aren’t a frigid, self-important white person, it will leave you with positive and happy feelings. Without further ado:

Solid commercial, right? You’re probably wondering, upon viewing the commercial yourself, exactly how big an object one must have up their ass in order to perceive the delightful commercial above as racist? Answer: really big. And wide.

I want to make clear, my opinion is not that this Super Bowl commercial for Volkswagen is not racist. That is an observable fact, and only my opinion insofar as, “Everything Wrong with Today’s Youth is a blog,” is my opinion. It is fact, not opinion. It is not up for debate.

Yes, that the commercial doesn’t seem to include a single black American doesn’t help its case. It makes it easier for someone to decry it as, “verbal blackface,” which is the stupidest characterization of this commercial I’ve heard so far.

My opinion on the commercial, for what it’s worth, is that it’s funny. Cute, even. But to call it racist would mean anything that ever mentions or alludes to race – a commercial, a statement, an article, a TV show, etc… – in a humorous or lighthearted manner is racist. If the 2013 Volkswagen Super Bowl commercial is racist, then what isn’t?

The most intellectually defective argument for why this commercial is so racist is that it implicitly assumes all Jamaicans are happy. It doesn’t. At most (if we must get theoretical), it posits that there is at least one happy Jamaican, the persona of whom is co-opted by people as a result of driving a Volkswagen. That’s not racist. The condescending assertion that this commercial is racist because Jamaica, with all it’s social and cultural issues, does not house a single happy Jamaican, is racist.

The thing is, no one who really matters is calling it racist. Which, being a person who doesn’t matter, is why I feel qualified to opine on it.

“Gabby’s Crab Problem..”

By Noel Rennips on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

My father used to say that black people are like “Crabs in a barrel” and he also warned me to never “be the first black to do anything” because blacks are among some of the most jealous of people. Throughout my short-lived life I have found some truth to those statements and I have found some not-so-truths to them, too. Continue reading…

3 Comments

Adam Smith: When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong!

By Noel Rennips on Sunday, August 5th, 2012

“When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong” was a skit performed on the infamous Chappelle Show. Usually it portrayed a person getting what they deserve because they were doing something they had no business doing. Sometimes, what they were doing needed to be done, but not at that particular place or time. It was one of my favorite skits! It was my favorite because it happens all the time in “real life” situations.

Adam Smith knows about this. Here is a guy who thought his actions were going to be rewarded by the gay community and most people who don’t like Cathy’s comments and Chick-Fil-a’s anti gay donations and sponsorship’s, only to find himself, unemployed and humiliated after his episode a few days ago. I have no sympathy for the ignorant man and after some intense thinking, it lead to my revelation.

His actions DON’T only speak to the type of man he is, but also partly to the “gay movement” itself. When we think of social change and progressive political movements we think of anti racism, anti poverty, and anti-homophobia. However, as one of the Youtubers commented, “there is just as much hate from the “social left” as there is from the “social
right“.”

You may say I’m jumping the gun, but I’m not. liberals can and sometimes are ignorant, backwards, selfish, self-centered, unintelligent and hateful creatures too and this man, Adam Smith (ironically named) is proof of this sheepish, cowardly attitude polluting the left. The fact that people who work for this company are now being subjected to this amount of harassment is evidence that our discourse is so skewed that its beyond repair.

Here is his apology with a Q&A. This guy should have been fired, and I hope the anti Chick-Fil-a people have denounced his actions.

Honestly, no one cares about your politics, most of these people are hard working individuals simply trying to make a living. NO ONE works at Chick-Fil-a because they support Cathy’s political agenda/views.

Come on now!

3 Comments

“Identification Please”

By Noel Rennips on Saturday, August 4th, 2012

Jim Crow still exist! The new “voter ID laws” popping up all over the United States affecting rural and urban communities are solid proof of that fact. It is unfair and one would think illegal to require such boundaries for citizens who wish to vote in this country. Clearly no one will raise a fuss about it until Obama losses though. These new laws don’t prevent fraud, and they aren’t proper national security measures either. They are deliberate and focused on stopping minorities and poor people from carrying out their civic responsibility.

1 in 10 Americans who are eligible to vote won’t be able to because of these requirements which are just as serious as poll taxes. Obviously, what our leaders think they are stopping is illegal immigrants from stealing the election, but in reality they are halting the American process of voting for hundreds of thousands of people who already don’t vote.

So, now along with the excuses of “my vote doesn’t count” and “the power is in the electoral college” we can now add that “I don’t have a drivers license” to the list.

The Real Issue is:

While working in Atlanta, GA last year I worked on a few different projects to try and get homeless men and women their basic ID’s. Since we live in an age of fear I understood how important ID’s were for everything. People who don’t have ID’s are literally nothing.They have no proof of existence, legally, which is dangerous not only because they can “commit crimes” and “still others identities” (Things the “right” want you to be fearful of) but also its dangerous because the person without an ID is vulnerable to legal and illegal penalty’s, too.

My biggest surprise while taking on this challenge was noticing that not all faceless people were homeless. Some of these people had families, and were looking for jobs and were unable to get jobs or any sort of income because of lack of identification. Some were young (my age) and weren’t able to get a job or get into school because they lacked ID’s. The real catch is that, in order to get an ID you must have documents that are either:

too expense for many people to get new copies of
impossible to get copies of in a timely fashion

So, its fair to say that voting is the least of these peoples concerns. Most had great disdain for voting and government at all levels, which I now sort of share because of this discovery.

So in conclusion, I understand everyone’s angst with this in relation to voting, but there lots of people who are affected by this in everyday life. And that needs to change.

Cover Photo © 2012 Virginia Guard Public Affairs. Taken from their Flickr.

1 Comment

The Three People You meet on Facebook

By Noel Rennips on Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

You ever log into Facebook and notice a Friend Request that you know you’ve accepted before? According to Facebook 4.8 percent of all active accounts are duplicate, non-human, or spam. This comes as no real news to me. In my list of friends now numbering in the thousands, I have always noticed spam friends, duplicate accounts, and friend(ing) friends pets and/or businesses.

The Spam friends should be the easiest to spot. They will find you on Facebook and claim to have went to High School or College with you, sometimes leaving you obnoxious, creepy messages about how they wish they got to know you. If you make the mistake of adding them to your online community, you will soon forget they even exist. From my experience, they don’t post often, but when they do it is usually about something intimate. Usually how they “wish someone would talk to them” it makes me miss Myspace. Also spam (the usually spammer being some sexual entity) Will always have a rather generic photo of themselves, especially if its a female.

The duplicate friend is usually very unhappy with his/her life or may have a hacker problem. Most times its unhappiness. The weirdest part about the duplicate friend is noticing that they have more than one active account. Some may not hide this fact, and post statuses and stuff from multiple accounts, but sometimes they are unaware of their multiple accounts. Unlike the Spammer, they won’t message you upon requesting addition friendship. Sometimes they’ll say “I had to make a new account because my mother added me on my last one” and I suppose I can understand that.

The Non-Human, Business, Pet friend is kind, hard working and gentle. Usually they are small business owners, local artist, and animal enthusiast. However, these people do not know how to create pages for their beloved pets and business ventures. So, instead they make accounts like humans and insist on friending people whom they know. These accounts are not really a problem, and actually gives you good insights to who a person really is and wants to be (hopefully, not employed by Facebook).

According to a new study of Facebook, many speculators are saying that these 3 categories are confusing the numbers on Facebook so bad that the Facebook stock is down. It may be that or people getting tired of Facebook.

One must admit that Facebook is rather dull, and useless you having a baby. It seems the trend among my friends is marriage and babies, and I suppose that is normal…

Don’t Eat the Chicken

By Noel Rennips on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

The only time I have an urge to eat at Chick-Fil-a is on Sunday… (Un)fortunately, they are always closed on Sunday. It comes with the territory that is the owners philosophy: “Sunday is the day God rested, its the Sabbath and all people’s should have that day off to worship and fellowship in his name”(paraphrased). This philosophy is Christian because the owner is a devoted christian who feels that God is real and Christianity is HIS truth. Continue reading…

3 Comments

Understanding the Death of Trayvon Martin

By James Kalìwæ on Sunday, March 18th, 2012

I was going to write something about this story (VIDEO), in which a seventeen-year-old black boy named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a white man named George Zimmerman who judged him to be “up to no good.”

And then I found this fantastic blog post by Deborah Mello at her blog, I Ain’t Said Nothin’ But A Word.

Anyone aware of the story’s facts knows this is clearly manslaughter at least. So why, then, haven’t the police arrested George Zimmerman? I don’t know about all of that, but Trevon Martin’s family wants the FBI to get involved. I agree with them.

Please give Deborah’s post a read, it’s very well written and says a lot about modern race relations in the United States.

UPDATE: Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post wrote a great opinion article about this tragedy. Please give it a read.

7 Comments

Yahoo Sues Facebook Over Patent

By James Kalìwæ on Monday, March 12th, 2012

Photo by Sebastian Bergmann

In a lawsuit filed today in San Jose, California, Yahoo is claiming Facebook violated ten of its advertising-system patents. msnbc.com reports:

Yahoo sued Facebook on Monday over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the Web, according to a copy of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in a San Jose, Calif., federal court, marks the first major legal battle among technology giants in social media and a major escalation of patent litigation that has already swept up the smartphone and tablet sectors and high-tech stalwarts such as Apple, Microsoft and Motorola.

Pretty big deal considering Facebook’s upcoming IPO.

Misconduct review imminent for Anti-Obama judge

By James Kalìwæ on Friday, March 2nd, 2012

LA Times reports:

The Judicial Council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opened a misconduct review of Montana’s chief federal District Court judge for forwarding a racially charged email about President Obama from his courthouse computer.

Judge Richard F. Cebull asked for the review as calls mounted Thursday for his immediate resignation. Legal ethics experts predicted the incident would result in a public admonishment.

The judge, appointed byPresident George W. Bush12 years ago, maintained after the email became public that it was meant to be seen as anti-Obama and not racist, but added, “I can obviously understand why people would be offended.”

What is all this over, you might be asking. This is all over the following email, which this federal judge obviously couldn’t help but propagate.

Subject: A MOM’S MEMORY

“Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.

“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’ His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’ “

Now, it does seem this guy is at least more apologetic than most conservative Republicans have ever been toward Obama, but I’ll let you decide how sincere they are; especially in the face of this misconduct review:

“I sincerely and profusely apologize to you and your family for the email I forwarded,” Cebull wrote. “I have no one to blame but myself.” Before adding, “Please forgive me.”

I don’t even know what to think of this type of shit anymore.

1 Comment

Bank of America Still Scheming to get Your Money

By James Kalìwæ on Thursday, March 1st, 2012

Bottom Line – Bank of America reportedly considering new checking fees

msnbc.com

Bank of America, the nation’s second-largest bank in terms of assets, is planning to make changes to its basic checking accounts that would introduce a monthly fee for customers unless they agree to bank online, buy more products or maintain certain balances, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Pilot programs in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts are experimenting with charging $6 to $9 a month for what’s called an “Essentials” account. Other account options being tested in those states carry monthly charges of $9, $12, $15 and $25, but give customers opportunities to avoid the payments by maintaining minimum balances, using a credit card or taking a mortgage with Bank of America, according to an internal memo cited by the Journal.

So, in other words, no matter what anyone does, the banks are going to make a certain amount of money from their customers one way or another. If you make one banking practice illegal, they’re not just gonna take the hit to their profit; they’re going to make that profit back some other way.

What do we do about this? Personally, I think it’s all about ensuring there’s enough competition between the banks. It’s all about anti-trust. As long as there are [enough] alternatives to Bank of America, these fees will never become absurdly exorbitant. I think legislating the individual banking practices is anti-capitalist and ineffective. If the banks have to compete between one another, there will be no need to legislate the individual banking practices.

1 Comment

Everything Wrong with Today's Youth

Personified by the Writings of an Over-Functioning Pothead

Posts from the ‘News’ category

The Volkswagen Super Bowl Commercial & Vainglorious White People

Further Reading

“Gabby’s Crab Problem..”

Adam Smith: When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong!

“Identification Please”

The Three People You meet on Facebook

Don’t Eat the Chicken

Understanding the Death of Trayvon Martin

Yahoo Sues Facebook Over Patent

Misconduct review imminent for Anti-Obama judge

Bank of America Still Scheming to get Your Money

Bottom Line – Bank of America reportedly considering new checking fees

msnbc.com

Follow “Everything Wrong with Today's Youth”

Posts from the ‘News’ category

Further Reading

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Share! It makes me happy.

Like this:

Follow “Everything Wrong with Today's Youth”