The Weekend of Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes from the week

And then there is the lowest reality TV can go… I love me some reality TV. Survivor is effectively the NFL for my mom and I. Almost all of the shows have an incentive to win—a cash prize, a shotgun marriage, a date. Incentives matter both in life and in the gameshows that pit people against each other in boilerplate television. The kind of people chosen for the game matters (and even Probst gets it wrong as this season of Survivor players is filling up with quitters).

Surviving Paradise puts a bunch of Gen Z kids in competition to win $200,000 by the typical backstabbing and alliances. Same script, different people, right? Except that the goal is incentivized with living in extreme luxury versus living in a stripped down camp. Chocolate croissants or rice and beans. Pedicures or an outhouse. Infinity pools or not showering for days at a time in the woods.

Maybe it was the sight of Zoomers without their phones and realizing that these twelve kids are simply awful people stripped of their digital crutches or the non-stop pursuit of the kind of luxurious living only millionaires get to enjoy but I watched this show and left feeling less hopeful about the kids these days. And maybe lost a few IQ points as well.

How about Blacks for the KKK? There seems to be a lot of awkward confusion among activists when Palestine is concerned these weeks. ‘Queers for Palestine’ is one of the most bizarre given that those very queers would be hung until dead in Palestine for being… queer. The chants of “No Peace on Stolen Land” coming from New York and Chicago is uncomfortable when you consider that A) New York and Chicago are on former indigenous land and B) that Israeli’s are actually the indigenous people in that particular part of the world.

Because most villains are scarred on the inside. Plenty of research has been parsed out exposing that trigger warnings have not only been ineffective, the presence of a trigger warning is often, well, triggering. That isn’t stopping the openly scarred from launching their own trigger warning request:

A UK charity representing those with a disfigurement or visible difference has written to broadcasters including Netflix, Disney+ and the BBC asking that Halloween favourites such as A Nightmare on Elm Street run with warnings that the films contain negative stereotypes.

Changing Faces has sent the letter as part of its I Am Not Your Villain campaign, which aims to eradicate the common trope of feared characters being portrayed as people with a scar, mark or condition that makes them look different.

“We know that Halloween can be an anxious time for those with visible differences,” said Heather Blake, the chief executive of Changing Faces. “The film industry plays a role in this by reinforcing old-fashioned and harmful stereotypes. These carry through to everyday life for those with visible differences in ways that can have a lasting impact.”

Freddy Krueger is the avatar of burn victims with razor gloves and I certainly wouldn’t want to stigmatize a kid with similar traits. I mean, those razor gloves are just a differently abled Edward Scissorhands.

Time a DEEP thought. I’ve mentioned the horoscope app I have on my iPad before. I’m not into the astrology fantasy but I like the thoughtful pronouncements. Thursday’s was this:

“Every trace of your participation will one day be erased.”

Ooooo. That’s good. Rather than a push toward nihilism (“It all has NO MEANING, dude!”) I prefer to go the route that this opens things up to mean that while my participation will not survive the test of time, my participation can be meaningful to me in the moment. Impermanence is the state we all live within and the knowledge of both our unavoidable deaths as well as the concept of time erasing all semblance of legacy can be a real downer. Embrace the impermanence and live the life you most enjoy.

My inner child most days…

Wait, what? The concept of decolonizing institutions makes no sense to me. The definitions at play simply don’t add up.

Decolonization is about “cultural, psychological, and economic freedom” for Indigenous people with the goal of achieving Indigenous sovereignty -- the right and ability of Indigenous people to practice self-determination over their land, cultures, and political and economic systems. Colonialism is a historical and ongoing global project where settlers continue to occupy land, dictate social, political, and economic systems, and exploit Indigenous people and their resources.

What, then, does ‘decolonizing’ a curriculum even mean? It certainly isn’t focused on indigenous sovereignty. No matter how you slice it, unless the only people hired to work, teach, or perform are of Native American ancestry in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia (the only parts of the country colonized), the term is meaningless.

Try, TRY to be consistent with your moral stances. When angry patriots decided to go after Muslim Americans following 9/11, I was disgusted and stood by them. No group is a monolith and no person tangentially associated with a group should be targeted for violence or intimidation. Today, I’m standing behind Jewish Americans as similarly rabid pro-Hamas students target them for violence and intimidation. I know it’s pointless to suggest these collegiate morons grow up and understand that the world they’re living in is not one of oppressors and oppressed.

Nearly 2,000 sociologists signed a letter that Israel was committing “genocide” and anything Hamas does is justified by the “context.” The University of California, Berkeley Ethnic Studies Faculty Council released a statement condemning anyone who describes what Hamas did as “terrorism,” which is offensive. The student leader of a Wellesley residential house wrote to the entire dorm she oversees: “We firmly believe that there should be no space, no consideration, and no support for Zionism within the Wellesley College community.” Harvard launched a task force to help ensure the pro-Hamas protesters feel safe and can get jobs while also berating any Jews they might find. At George Washington University, students projectedonto the side of the school library: GLORY TO OUR MARTYRS and FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA. At Stanford, students are asking the school to pay for round-trip tickets for Muslim students to visit home: “Full round trip covered by University upon the signing of a ceasefire for students to visit their family and friends and grieve properly.”

I believe this is the issue gone too far and will crack the progressives in half which only helps the totalitarian rightwing like Mike “Who the Fuck is This Guy” Johnson (a Speaker of the House who has more in common with the homophobia and rhetoric of Islam Extremists than anyone resembling a thinking human).

It’s the guns, OK? Seriously.

Halloween Costume idea. Dressing up is make-em-up fantasy play so how about some of us dress up this Halloween as reasonable adults with listening skills, empathy, and a curiosity about whichever side of things they consider the Other?

Hang in there, gang.