More Things I Don't Understand
I think a lot. Some would probably say too much for my own good. But dammit, these things do pop into my head and I carry them around with me like the theme song from Barney until I can get an answer. Come to think of it, I think Girls Just Want to Have Fun is pretty catchy too. So here's what I'm thinking about today...Why Are Wars Always Fought in Such God-Forsaken Holes?
Why are wars always fought over the most useless pieces of real estate around? I'd always thought that wars happened when one side wanted something the other side had - like Poland - or over some solemn and important religious disagreement - like whether the head cheese wears the right hat. Instead, it seems that wars are a case of the extreme have-nots against the excessive have-nots.
Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. Let's face it, none of these places is a prime spot for a resort development with spiffy timeshares and cheap hotels for drunken spring breakers. Hell, even Grenada, the one island paradise we chose to invade was a fetid hell-hole of slogan-spouting Marxists whose sole claim to fame before the US invaded was building a crumbling airport runway - although their propaganda did said it the longest crumbling runway in the greater Caribbean sphere of influence. In fact, the place was such a backwater that the US military was forced to use maps from the Grenadian Auto Club to invade the place and call in air strikes with their AT&T telephone cards.
What gives? Can't we start a war in someplace like Paris? Aren't there any bad guys in Kingston or St. Thomas? Of course there are! So here's my plan. Since we are the world's sole remaining superpower - a fact that King George never misses a chance to point out - we pay to bring the bad guys over here so we can fight them from the comfort of our own Barcaloungers. I'm betting they would eventually all get distracted by the fruits of the capitalist system and line up to McDonald's franchises.
Can you think of a better way to beat them?
How Can TV Reality Shows Continue to Top Themselves?
OK. The first Survivor wasn't too bad. I didn't particularly like it, but at least it had some of the interesting elements or a real game. There was greed and avarice and screwing your teammates as much as possible, much like your typical office environment. Then there was The Amazing Race. Why, any mid-level executive in America can tell you how challenging it is to navigate the world's airline system. Overbooking! Bad food! A shortage of pillows! OMIGOD!...WILL...THEY...MAKE...IT?
After that came a few shows that really capitalized on popular American culture. Temptation Island sent "committed couples" to a tropical resort stocked with unlimited alcohol and naked members of the opposite sex. Who could have guessed the contestants would desert their significant others in a nanosecond to be with Juan the pool boy porn star or Lotta Uptop the exotic dancer? In Joe Millionaire, a group of Dallas Cowboy cheerleader wannabes was convinced that the man of their dreams was both a hunk and a millionaire. I was simply SHOCKED when the ladies thought their guy was considerably less handsome when the monetary details were revealed. The Swan went one better by providing complete plastic surgery makeovers to "ugly ducklings" and then ridiculing the results on national TV. I mean actual surgery. Come on people! How can you top that? Is that Must See TV or what?
While those are going to be hard to top, I think I have a few good ideas.
How about Bonnie and Clyde? An attractive couple plan and commit an actual bank robbery on national TV, getting caught in a shootout and dying a grisly death as the bank tellers vote on which one took the most bullets before falling down. Or, how about Baghdad Bullies? The world's sole remaining superpower takes over a small third world country, ruins its economy - as well as their own - and makes the entire place uninhabitable by anyone except for religious loonies or terrorists. At then end of the show, a guy with big ears tries to convince everyone that everything is hunky dory while viewers vote on the effectiveness of his message.
Oh wait. I think someone may have already beat me to the punch on that one.
Truth Told by Omnipotent Poobah, Sunday, July 10, 2005
