by The Young Sentinel
John McCain announced that utterly unprepared Alaska Governor is his choice for VP. But now, I think we need to let John have his special day.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Happy Birthday John McCain
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19 comments:
Bluntly: this is tasteless and unnecessary. While I have no problem with McCain-bashing, at least make it high quality McCain-bashing.
More insight, fewer juvenile and immature attempts at humor. Kthxbai.
stupid. Makes a mockery of the website. not funny.
stick to the convention diaries. those are great.
a little humor never hurt anyone [too much]! ;-)
I somewhat agree with Sectori. Though, at least it is more tasteful than most of youtube's content.
Whoa, some of you commenters have your tightie-whities on a little too tightie. Loosen up folks. What's wrong with funny now and then anyway? Shows a more multi-faceted, well rounded and humanistic point of view. I like it.
Even McCain has the capacity for some self-deprecating humor. McCain & Palin, the Maverick & the MILF! Okay that's not funny. Insane? Yes!
Obama might benefit by expressing a little humor now and then.
nothing's wrong with a little funny- but that wasn't funny
I find it a ridiculous double standard that Obama is derided and insulted for lack of experience, but McCain's age is a taboo subject.
I'm sorry if you don't find it funny. Sometimes you have to be able to laugh at yourself. This is not an intellectual dissection of McCain's opinions and history. This is entertainment. It's not designed to attack McCain. It's supposed to provide a little laughter, some light mockery.
If you find it offensive, I'm sorry. If you were to make a similar video making fun of Obama's supposed inexperience, I would understand.
We need more laughter in the world. By the way, I've shown this to many, many old people and they find it funny without exception.
There are times that call for seriousness: like the war, health care, and terrorism.
But this is completely superficial by design. It's not libelous and its not offensive. It's either funny clean humor or it's not funny clean humor.
I think it's funny. Seventy-two candles make a lot of fire.
Is their a problem with being older than your rival....?
I never said that I did not find it funny, because I do find it quite creative and witty. I just don't find it to be the most tasteful piece in the world.
I do think, though, that the lampooning of things that cannot be changed, (aside from human nature,) may slightly hurt the blog in the long run.
I'm with disciple of science in that I think this is beneath the general level of content for this blog.
I'm also not so sure it's that witty—the subject of McCain's age (as well as that of Obama's inexperience; besides, we have this Alaskan governor person to talk about now) is overdone.
I agree that we need more laughter in the world. I just think having it at the expense of something that it is impossible for someone to change (age, gender, sexual orientation, whatever) is tasteless and unnecessary. If you were to make light of some unintelligent comment that McCain had made (or Obama, for that matter, if either were to make one), I would be fine with that. This, not so much.
I do, however, have to join you in appreciating the fire. Fire is always fun.
I'm going to broaden/somewhat change the subject slightly.
This sounds audacious, but isn't there too much laughter in this country? (other areas of the world need more laughter though, so I do agree in that regard.) With millions of Americans laughing at negative cultural and social stereotypes alongside flatulence and profanity, our comedic media is making people blissfully ignorant. Therefore, it is a trivial endeavor to try to call a piece that is minimally offensive completely tasteless, while that same piece is more tasteful than most "comical" things in our society.
Education and science need to have their federal funding increased immediately if we are to fell this media ogre. Because if people become more educated, society would not revolve around the materialism, ignorance, and addiction to trivial indulgences that has our youth failing school, rendered comedic media the epitome of vulgarity, given creationism a place in our public schools, and elected George "Dubyah" Bush to be the President of the United States of America.
Oh, and if every American were as fascinated by fire as neanderthals, the world would be a better place.
I'm not sure we have too much laughter, but I do think that often we laugh at the wrong things. American humor seems bent on violating social taboos and making sure the laughs will be nonstop.
This is why I prefer the winding setups and punchlines of good British humor to the fart and sex jokes of American humor.
As to education, that's a hole different can of worms (yay, idioms), but if someone wanted to address it, it would be good.
My point, (which I did not articulate well enough,) is that Americans must become more educated and serious before they can see that the things that are making them laugh are idiotic, insensitive, and vulgar.
I agree that American humor is on the whole boorish, unintellectual, and generally in bad taste, but perhaps that is not such a bad thing. American humor embodies the American spirit: materialistic, irreverent, and generally offensive to more "sophisticated" observers.
However, it is precisely these qualities that struck fear into the hearts of hidebound aristocrats across Europe when America was first founded. Of course, current culture has taken things to an extreme - we need more intellectualism and less fart and sex jokes. Still, I maintain that the sign of a healthy democratic culture is its willingness to slay sacred cows wherever it finds them, and that when this is restricted in the name of "good taste" it is a blow to democracy.
As sectori said education is too big a topic for this thread, so I started a new post on it
Here is my take, which I know you've all been waiting for.
I believe that there is nothing wrong with fart humor. It is intellectual snobbery, pure and simple, that leads to its condemnation. I don't care what people laugh at. [Sectori: let me correct myself; at what people laugh.]
I am prone to immature humor. I do, I must admit, find the "Farting McCain" youtube video uproariously funny,
It may not be intellectually advanced, but satire and comedy of almost every kind are to the overall benefit of the human race.
HOWEVER: I condemn and do not enjoy comedy which is unnecessarily offensive. Vulgarity may be tolerable, but offensive comments over race, gender, sexual orientation, or disability are not.
It is a mark of the shortsightedness of intellectual snobbery that would cause us to pin the problems facing America on something so comparatively innocent as comedy. On this, I profoundly disagree with you.
As I see it, the problem with America is that the commercially dominated entertainment industry imprints the wrong messages in the minds of our youth:
-anti-intellectualism
-racism and sexism
-lack of interest in other cultures
-a repugnant sense of materialism, consumerism, and wastefulness
But if we are to change the country, we must first change ourselves. We don't all need to be intellectuals, but we don't have to vote for President in such a way that we vote for the guy we'd rather have a beer with than the guy who is best prepared from the job. Speaking French is not anti-American.
We need to individually try to be less wasteful. Take only what you will use and then try to conscientiously dispose of it. Pollution is not a virtue.
So don't say that humor is the problem. We can't let humor cover our problems, but there is no harm in laughter.
I never said that American humor was the entire problem. Moreover, it should be treated as the effect of corporately sponsored and controlled media.
For once, I actually agree with something rishubhav said: "Still, I maintain that the sign of a healthy democratic culture is its willingness to slay sacred cows wherever it finds them."
"[Sectori: let me correct myself; at what people laugh.]"
First of all, I have absolutely no problem with clause-final prepositions. In fact, feel free to use them. I'm not a grammar fascist about things that aren't actually wrong. I will always put up with ending sentences with prepositions, as long as it is done correctly (i.e. not just arbitrarily throwing prepositions in at the end when they do not belong).
"It is a mark of the shortsightedness of intellectual snobbery that would cause us to pin the problems facing America on something so comparatively innocent as comedy. On this, I profoundly disagree with you."
I'm not trying to pin the myriad problems facing this country on comedy, but I do think that the way much American comedy approaches things is symptomatic of some of these problems, as you and disciple of science both mention.
Finally:
"It is intellectual snobbery, pure and simple, that leads to its condemnation. I don't care what people laugh at."
I don't care what people laugh at on their own time, but I do think that this video, as well as the post purporting to teach McCain to use a computer, as "anonymous" said at the beginning, go a ways towards "[making] a mockery of the website". This is not because I have a problem with other people's liking this humor (it doesn't move me, to put it more diplomatically than I did initially, but hey—if it works for you...), but rather because I think this video and the previously-mentioned post do not measure up to the high standards that have been set here. Compare this video with, say the post about Georgia.
Out of context, I would just watch this video and leave. In the context of this site, however, this video is a jarring change of pace from the rest of the content, and it doesn't feel like it belongs here.
I hope I've done a better job articulating this than I apparently did before.
Articulation success. Will consider next time.
I think it's awesome. A lot of fire!
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