He asked his Twitter followers (and who are the 7,000 losers who follow Uri Geller?) “Can you please try to ‘see’ where YOU believe the plane went down? How and why, what are you own feelings, what does your intuitive sense tell you. THANKYOU.”
I predict that history will view me as laughably insignificant
And on Facebook, he posted this, along with this selfie that confirms he is a gonad fold: “Malaysia Plane Crash: what do you all think? If the plane did not crash is it possible for it to have landed in either North Korea or Iran?? How many of you think it crashed how many of you think it landed somewhere.”
And he said this out loud on purpose about his “remote viewing” capabilities in response to a reporter: “It works by people sending their mind through space and time. I have been asked by quite a substantial figure in Malaysia what my feelings are about this situation.”
Geller is a parasite. There are 239 lives in the balance as this bizarre tragedy unfolds. Their families desperately seek hope and answers. It’s beyond reprehensible for Geller to trade on that fear and uncertainty to draw attention to himself and his parlor tricks. And it’s disrespectful to ask his mini-legion of dipshit wannabe clairvoyants to post and tweet their visions of Flight 370’s fate. If he had shame, he’d be overcome by it.
Let’s close this out with a classic clip of Johnny Carson humiliating a young Geller on The Tonight Show many years ago. So wonderful.
There are many terrible things happening. First, there is a phenomenon my friend Tim made me aware of last night. Local PBS here in Atlanta (and I’m sure elsewhere) routinely runs infomercials. Last night, some dipshit had an hour block to tell us how to overcome the “seven types” of ADD. If this is what public broadcasting requires to stay on the air, then take it off the air. We have more options for arts and education from more media than we have ever had. Shoot that wounded dog dead.
Need more convincing? Tonight, Deepak Chopra gets an hour of public air time to help us lose weight. There is no worse human being on the planet than jewel-bespectacled new age charlatan Chopra. He’s an industry of bullshit. He is a much worse slimy rich guy than Donald Trump. His cynical feel-good snake oil act manipulates the hopes and good intentions of decent people. Sometimes people who are desperate for comfort, or a way out, or just health and happiness.
So now Dr. One-Percenter Hypocrite is convincing fans of public broadcasting that satisfying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will make cellular changes to their bodies that will help them lose weight. And keep it off!
Here is a thing he says out loud about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: “If these needs are not being met in your life, you will inevitably fill them with addictive foods.”
Hahaha! We don’t take anyone seriously who says nonsense like this, right? Right? Please, right? Don’t forget to visit the Deepak Shop on your way out.
It seems to me that SeaWorld could’ve saved itself some future problems if it had reconsidered this conversation from 40 or so years ago:
“OK team, we want to bring whales to the park. We’re going to put the giant whales in tanks with humans and have them perform tricks together, largely for huge crowds of families with children. Any suggestions on what type of whales we should get?”
“Uh, how about killer whales, Larry?”
Controversy has smothered the summer fish circus SeaWorld since CNN first aired the combustible documentary Blackfish a few months ago. (I first typed “searing documentary” but couldn’t abide the unintentional fish pun.)The film makes a passionate and riveting case against SeaWorld’s captivity of orcas, the massive killer whales that have drawn hundreds of thousands of people to its parks for decades.
As part of the swift, fervid backlash against SeaWorld, many musicians backed out of a summer SeaWorld concert series. Several celebrities have spoken out on record, including this scathing indictment by whale-cocked drumstick-twirling marine biologist Tommy Lee:
Shortly after making this statement, Tommy Lee got online to search for cow vaginas
It’s almost impossible to watch Blackfish without at least questioning the wisdom of keeping the big fish captive for our entertainment. You don’t soon forget harrowing scenes of orcas turning on trainers and dragging them to the depths of the tanks. As damning the movie is, I always maintain some skepticism when people with a specific and personal agenda attack something. There is always some truth in the middle that they distort or ignore. I’m sure there are many good people at SeaWorld who really do care about the well-being of the animals in the parks. In fact, I am certain that SeaWorld cares. Here’s how I know:
Which brings this meandering post to its elusive topic: SeaWorld’s insulting, annoying and staggeringly inept response to Blackfish. SeaWorld seems determined douse a brush fire with kerosene until the entire forest burns to ash.
SeaWorld defends itself with an aggressive, name-calling assault, partly in the form of incessant pay-promoted tweets such as this one:
I want to invite SeaWorld, vegans and self-assured atheists to my next dinner party!
Wow! Way to do everything wrong SeaWorld! I have no idea what communications agency SeaWorld works with, but either the agency is giving poor advice or SeaWorld executives are so blindly angry that they are forcing the issue. This fails in every way possible.
1) It’s defensive. SeaWorld sounds like a guilty politician caught fucking the housekeeper, reacting with indignant and angry denial.
2) It’s dismissive. Blackfish worked. It fueled real emotional responses for a wide audience of people. Now SeaWorld opts to insult those people for being naive to “propaganda.” If you make someone mad, then call them stupid for being mad, you just make them that much less eager to forgive you or even listen to you.
3) It’s self-defeating. SeaWorld has done more to promote Blackfish than anyone besides CNN. SeaWorld has introduced the controversy to countless people who had probably never heard of it to begin with.
4) It’s pedantic. Here is SeaWorld’s lengthy response to Blackfish. The movie grabbed attention with vivid, emotional and sometimes tragic human and animal stories. SeaWorld responded with a manifesto that reads like a labyrinth court deposition. SeaWorld splits semantic hairs and haggles over chronology and minutiae that won’t sway opponents and will likely inflame neutral observers. Case in point:
The film depicts a killer whale collection in Washington State that occurred 40 years ago. It leaves viewers with three false impressions: (1) that SeaWorld continues to collect whales from the wild to this day; (2) that Tilikum himself was collected by SeaWorld; and (3) that the collections done four decades ago were illegal. None of this is true. SeaWorld does not collect killer whales in the wild, and has not done so in over 35 years. Tilikum was not collected by us. And the collections four decades ago were conducted in compliance with federal laws, pursuant to federally-issued permits at that time.
Thanks, SeaWorld! Now I completely understand why those whales have sad floppy fins and drag your trainers to their terrifying deaths in your torture pools! No one who watched Blackfish will be moved or fooled by this turgid barrel of words.
5) It’s annoying. This will probably end up being the longest post I’ve ever written here. Not because I’m an activist for the cause. It’s because SeaWorld annoyed the shit out of me. It’s relentless, aggressive tweets irritated me so fiercely that I first started responding to them on Twitter, and then took to writing this rant that at least 17 other people will see. Aim at foot, pull trigger, SeaWorld!
I found Blackfish compelling, and at times sad and terrifying. But I’m not a someone who thinks about SeaWorld much to begin with. I’m middle-aged with no kids. I hyperventilate and explode in hives just passing through the Orlando airport, filled with loud, overpacked huddles of sugar-and-Mickey-bloated families navigating the airport as if it’s a corn maze.
So I’m not someone who would have ever even considered a trip there. Blackfish would’ve likely drifted to the back of my consciousness. Except SeaWorld just wouldn’t let it.
So, SeaWorld, here is the lesson of the title you should heed. Given your noisy, belligerent and self-destructive response, what you should have said was nothing. (Impatient viewers skip to the 3:40 mark.)
Asthma is the least of the woman’s problems in this commercial. Before she sees her doctor or visits asthma.com, she should leave her whiny, self-absorbed, unsupportive husband, quit her job and tell her sister or friend or whoever that is to eat balls. She’s surrounded by nasty, boorish hags and wankers. Even her little daughter is a guilt-peddling esteem leech.
Seriously, the husband could not be a bigger dick. “Your debilitating, potentially deadly asthma attack that jarred you from sleep as you clutched your chest and choked in terror to draw air into the constricted airways of your lungs WOKE ME UP AGAIN! Now what are you making for breakfast?”
And the husband and sister double team the woman when says she likes to get outside. “Unless it’s ‘too cold,'” the husband says with disdainful air quotes. “Like the last three weekends!” sister-bitch chimes in. Hey, sorry I didn’t feel like going to the Chili Cook-Off because I couldn’t reliably fill my lungs with air! And you are so right to doubt my determination that the air was cold enough to exacerbate my condition. That’s exactly the type of thing I like to lie about so this affliction that I did not choose can trap me like a prisoner in my own home! You still read me like a book after all these years!
And are we so cynical that we assume children have no empathy for their own parents? A five-year-old hates it when her mom is sick. Little kids will invent shit to make their parents feel better. “Mom, I found this pine cone with magic medicine in it. You can’t see the medicine, but if you just hold the pine cone, you’ll be able to breath again. God said so.”
Instead, this redrum-hallway shame pug makes sure mommy knows the full extent of her joyless, disappointing childhood.
Then her boss shows up to helpfully remind her that “You missed the meeting this week AGAIN!” You know, I manage people in my job. If someone came to me and said, “Hey, I’m having a really bad time today and would prefer not to sit through a meeting and self-consciously suck on my inhaler in a room full of my colleagues,” I’d certainly understand. I can’t imagine saying anything besides, “Take care of yourself, hope you feel better. It’s just a meeting, I’ll catch you up later.”
The kicker is the closer. “I don’t use my rescue inhaler a lot.” Sister-bitch: “It depends on what you mean by, ‘a lot.'” Hmm, I don’t know, how about every time I can’t breathe because of this asthma that I wish more than anything I didn’t have? Is that a lot? How often am I inconveniencing you by drawing breath?
Isn’t there a better way to extol the virtues of asthma treatments without portraying sufferers as a dreadful burden on the people around them?
OK, we thought this was funnier a month ago when Newt was still a feasibly viable GOP candidate. But having grown up in Atlanta, we have a special appreciation for Newt’s charms, most notably that his name sounds like a McDonaldland character. We were duly inspired to consider other, more electable names for Newt Gingrich:
I got on the elevator at the office alone yesterday, and quickly realized that someone on a previous floor had farted and darted. A full-on mustard gas assault. Then it quickly dawned on me that worst thing wasn’t the five-floor ride up in a fetid assbox—it was going to be explaining to the people waiting for the elevator on my floor that it wasn’t me.
The background: Johnson got busted on a media site for “reporting” a story about Denzel Washington making a huge donation to a military hospital. Johnson (tee-hee) lifted the item verbatim from a chain letter. Then, on that media site, he posted a totally lame defense of his plagiarism. So we sent him an email, and we had this exchange:
—–Original Message—–
From: containseggs[mailto:ivan@containseggs.com] Sent: 6/24/05 10:14 AM To: Johnson, Richard Subject: Your Lame Response to Mr. Soriano
No, you didn’t choose to report something that “had become the subject of a chain letter,” you simply copied the content of the chain letter and reported it. Including the “quote” from a “source” that’s verbatim from the chain letter. And subsequent queries found that Mr. Washington did not write a check on the spot, but later made a large donation. You’re lazy, and Cesar Soriano is right, and your response makes you look like a bigger idiot.
3) This act of generositry and patriotism was ignored by the mainstream liberal press.
The rest is nit-picking and name-calling.
There is a reason why you don’t have your own column.
—–Original Message—– From: containseggs[mailto:ivan@containseggs.com] Sent: 7/5/05 9:57 AM To: Johnson, Richard Subject: RE: Your Lame Response to Mr. Soriano
I just noticed your reply. My email filter had wisely routed it to the Junk folder.
So, you think it’s nit-picking to call you out for plagiarizing a chain email that reported dubious facts. The fact that some of the material was ultimately true makes you no less lazy. You didn’t check facts. You didn’t even have an original thought.
And perhaps it was name calling to call you an idiot. It’s not reckless name calling, however, because it’s based on objective observation, validated further by your childish, partially coherent response. You are an idiot.
As far as me being an “idealogue,” I’m not sure what you mean. An idealogue is a theorist, or someone given to fanciful thinking. There was nothing fanciful in my email; I simply noted that you were disingenuous in your defense and a lazy reporter, both observations supported by facts.
Perhaps you meant “ideologue,” which means someone who advocates a certain ideology. In that case, I’m guilty—I advocate that journalists should not steal content from chain letters, pass it off verbatim as their own (including sources) without bothering to check facts, and then engage in an ongoing childish, spurious defense when caught.
The reason I don’t have my own column? I have another job and I’ve never aspired to be a columnist. Thanks for keeping the bar low in case I change my mind.
—–Original Message—– From: containseggs[mailto:ivan@containseggs.com] Sent: 7/5/05 11:42 AM To: Johnson, Richard Subject: RE: Your Lame Response to Mr. Soriano
Ouch, that really stung. You employ a crafty satirical wit in pure Swiftian tradition. Whose nephew are you to possibly remain employed?
containseggs 