“Pathology of power” and police brutality at “Occupy” protests

Philip Zimbardo: When a person feels “I am not personally responsible, I am not accountable; it’s the role I’m playing or these are the orders I’ve gotten,” then you allow yourself to do things you would never do under ordinary circumstances

Watching video of police officers beat, arrest, and pepper spray people – in response to Occupy Wall Street, and the protests it has inspired throughout the country – I can’t help but notice the similarities of the officers who have been violent and aggressive towards demonstrators. It’s almost as if they are acting like the military in foreign and hostile war zones, and less like civil-servants whose job it is to protect the citizens.

Don’t be an asshole: arguments for & against Occupy Wall Street

In the media, in conversations, on social networking sites, there’s nothing worse than irrational people passionately spewing their irrational nonsense. Especially with Occupy Wall Street. On both sides.

Before I proceed, I will tell you that I generally support  Occupy Wall Street and like the issues brought up by the intelligent members of the movement. But every time I hear someone scream “we are the 99 percent” it reinforces my desire to disaffiliate with groups that derive power from numbers. If you said “I am similar to 99 percent of the population in terms of income,” i would be less annoyed.

I’ll support people looking to end corruption. I’ll support people looking out for the least well-off in our country. I’ll support anybody’s right to nonviolently protest anything. But I don’t want to be apart of the group.

In this post, I will analyze some (not all) arguments on both sides of the Occupy Wall Street movement and address issues that I feel are keeping the two sides apart.

Baseless reviews: fall 2011 TV shows

I’m lazy, I don’t have time to watch all of the new TV shows to form an accurate opinion for a proper review. Here’s where my “baseless review comes in”: I will go through a few sitcoms debuting this fall as listed by TV guide, watch their trailers on youtube, and then present my uninformed review. I haven’t seen any of these shows, and I’m not sure if they have premiered yet. The important parts of the show’s description will be bolded so if you’re lazy like me, you can just browse that shit if you want.

Great books: The Making of a Counter Culture

One of the best stores in Kent is Last Exit Books, a used book store with prices so cheap it makes me wonder how they can make a profit. They have a bunch of old books on sale at either 50 cents or a dollar.

In August, I picked up a handful of those books for a couple of bucks. What a great investment. I am currently in the middle of The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Roszak, which was originally published in 1969, but it is still extremely relevant in today’s world. It gives so much insight on culture in the United States: young people, rebellion, society, angst. It’s just a great read. When I came across this passage 16 pages in, I was hooked:

Bad advertising – part 1: Coors Light

Coors Light

Before we get started, I would like to say that I drink Coors Light, it’s my cheap beer of choice. However, I have never seen a Coors Light commercial (or Miller Lite/Bud Light, but that’ll be another post…), and thought “you know what? that’s a great point!”

Commercial: It’s really fucking cold!

The most interesting cartoon ever printed

I was drunk at a bar in Montana not long before midnight last Sunday. For some reason, somebody in my group picked up the Sunday comics section of the local newspaper. It had the usual Dilbert, Garfield, Zits, Beetle Baily, and so on. But what was truly special was the large cartoon at the bottom of the colorful page.

The big one-panel cartoon (the size of two rows of three standard panels), was the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen in a comics section. Perhaps it was the most interesting thing I’ve witnessed with my two eyes. It had everybody squirting tears of uncontrollable laughter — there at the bar, on the cab ride to the house, and the following days. Still, about five days later, I can’t get it out of my mind. It has me laughing, thinking, guessing, questioning, contemplating about the illustrator’s intent.

The irrelevant NFL preseason: a statistical analysis

Overview

I am creating this post so my fellow blog-writer, Bryan Boggs, can formally agree that he was wrong, and I was right, in last night’s Twitter battle. I got annoyed that Cleveland Browns fans were boasting about the Browns beating the (super bowl champions!!!) Green Bay Packers in the preseason opener. Boggs, an avid fan of all things Cleveland, felt the need to call me out. Here are a selection of tweets (not all, because that would take forever)

• Me: Funny seeing browns fans excited over a preseason win. The lions went 4-0 before their 0-16 season. Patriots went 0-4 before 16-0 season.
• Boggs: @dougbrown8 part of winning is taught through habit. Things going well boost confidence&can lead into the season #thatandthelionswerebad
• Me: @itsboggs: Preseason is for coaches to evaluate their scrubs, not to win games. It literally has no bearing on team’s success.

Circular stupidity: the #blamethemuslims Twitter trending topic

The worldwide trending topics

D.B.

If you notice on Twitter, the number one trending topic in the world is “#blamethemuslims“. The root of the trending topic supposedly came from a Muslim women, satirizing how the world is quick to place blame on Muslim extremists for terrorism.

But if you happen to click on the hashtag, you will find something different. You will find pissed off people wondering why such a hashtag exists, and complaining that it is currently a worldwide trending topic, and stating that people using the hashtag are ignorant, idiotic, stupid and so on.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: I survived a full hour watching HLN. Barely.

D.B.

It’s 11:57am on Friday, July 22, and I’m about to embark on the challenge of a lifetime: watching Headline News (HLN) for a full hour for an in-depth analysis of television news. According to the “LIVE” icon in the corner, looks like it’s not taped. Let’s see what is going on in the world. The following will be the time each new story starts, the subject and my my descriptions of the story that I will write as it is being showed.

Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill” trailer. wow.

D.B.

Here is the trailer for the new movie staring Adam Sandler and… Adam Sandler! this could be the most cringe-worthy trailer I’ve ever seen: the over the top voice-over and male actor playing his own twin sister with an awful vice. I just… I just can’t.

who is this targeted for?