Through the Prism: Lists

An eclectic collection of random thoughts and ideas . . .

Starting with this marvelous image from InspiroBot:

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=083%2FaXm9641xjU.jpg

A transcription:

Pursue what is hard, not what is expensive.
Chase off teens when they're meditating.
Go after what is sexy, not what is complicated.
Don't imitate random people when they are riding the bus.
Go after what's legal, not what's cool.
Cry.
Cry where nobody else can see you.
Present yourself as an enemy.
Go after what's good for you there and then, not what's accurate.
Use foul language when you can.
Always throw rocks at a weirdo if you randomly run into one.
Eat dinner before breakfast.
Show some skin.
Misrepresent yourself.
Sacrifice a gerbil.
Compare yourself to a murderer, not someone with a positive outlook on life.
Don't scare innocent people when they are meditating.
Stand still with your hips clutched.
Don't disturb girls when they are robbing your house.
Read inspirational quotes when you feel sad.
Hook up with somebody who has anything whatsoever to offer to the world.
Don't exploit someone who has real friends.
Exploit someone with.
Hook up with a wild animal.
Wear a hat.
Take a nap before going to bed.
Pursue what is expected, not what is ridiculous.
Criticize people who are more disadvantaged than you everywhere you go.
Avoid sugars before flying.
Touch yourself.
Say something useful.
Carry yourself like a wild animal.
Straighten your hips.
Laugh at a hunk.
Present yourself as someone with no fear of death whatsoever.
Spread fake news, or at least don't spread rumours.
Yell at individuals who are a bad influence on you.
Push over individuals whom you don't like.
Nod your head and keep your hands bent during recess.
Hug an insect if you want to.

And that might just be all the nonsensical wisdom a person needs.

Speaking of InspiroBot, I wish I knew what the other rules were, as it's only deigned to share two of them with me so far:

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=086%2FaXm8599xjU.jpg

"Rule 8: Take some cocaine before meeting your in-laws."

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=083%2FaXm4460xjU.jpg

"Rule 10: Try to hate the dragon."

And then there's this little gem, in which I'm sure the word "man" very specifically means males and is not a generalized term meaning all humans regardless of gender:

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=078%2FaXm6045xjU.jpg

Yes, society is man's best friend because it privileges men. And many other categories and subcategories of people, who, unfortunately, are all too often willing to fight to maintain their privileges at the cost of everyone else.

I hesitate to share this next one because I haven't been able to absolutely verify a source. It's been going around social media with the claim it is from a 1968 issue of Mad Magazine, and my research concludes it's from Sept. '69, either MAD #129 or MAD Super Special #10, with the title "The MAD Primer of Bigots, Extremists, and Other Loose Ends" by Frank Jacobs and Stan Hart, ill. by Jack Davis. It certainly looks authentic. However, even if it is not, I find it contains much truth. Behold:

See the Super Patriot.
Hear him preach how he loves his country.
Hear him preach how he hates "Liberals" . . .
And "Moderates" . . . and "Intellectuals" . . .
And "Activists" . . . and "Pacifists" . . .
And "Minority Groups" . . . and "Aliens" . . .
And "Unions" . . . and "Teenagers" . . .
And the "Very Rich" . . . and the "Very Poor" . . .
And "People With Foreign-Sounding Names".
Now you know what a Super Patriot is.
He's someone who loves his country
While hating 93% of the people who live in it.

Of course, that criticism cuts both ways. We are all in this together and can't entirely dismiss anyone.

Now a bit from current events:

A Very British Protest

As President Donald Trump spent the second day of his U.K. visit with Prime Minister Theresa May, thousands of people gathered in London to march in characteristically creative style.

The people gathering to march in protest of President Trump’s U.K. visit had serious intentions, namely to stand up against a leader who’s remarkably unpopular in Britain. But that didn’t mean the tone was totally somber. As the first march of the day, the #BringTheNoise rally, began at 12 p.m., crowds of mostly women carried placards and banners sporting a variety of messages, each more irreverent than the last.

Here's a list of the signs mentioned in the article, starting with my favorite:

SUPER CALLOUS FRAGILE RACIST SEXIST LYING POTUS
FEED HIM TO THE CORGIS
TANGERINE TYRANT
BOLLOCKS TO TRUMP
IKEA HAS BETTER CABINETS
TRUMP IS A TOSSER
I HAD TO FIX MY PRINTER FOR THIS
HANDS OFF DONALD
NASTY ENGLISH LADIES AGAINST TRUMP’S MISOGYNY, RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA, ABLEISM, TRANSPHOBIA, ISLAMOPHOBIA
NOT TODAY SATAN
TRUMP GO HOME
I CAME HERE TO DRINK TEA AND FIGHT FASCISM AND I’VE JUST FINISHED MY TEA
GO HOME YOU RACIST COCKWOMBLE
OPRAH FOR PRESIDENT 2020
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS
THAT HAIR IS A HORCRUX
STOP LYING TRUMP
STOP BEING AN IDIOT
BADGERS SAY NO TO TRUMP
SOD OFF

So, okay, this next one's not a list, but that just makes it more eclectic and random. It's also a current event topic, and I share not just because the topic is an important and relevant and scary one, but also because the writing in the article is particularly delicious:

A TV Show So Dystopian Its Host Says It Shouldn’t Exist

Paid Off delivers a queasy illustration of American inequality and political dysfunction.

Picture the scene: a stage and three podiums at which three contestants line up to face a studio audience. A charismatic host materializes from backstage and asks the guests to share the typical autobiographical facts: first name, college, outstanding student-loan burden. The crowd greets each precise figure (“$8,480 in debt … $12,583 in debt … $28,587 in debt”) with an ohhh pitched halfway between sadness and shock. Then, the three contenders face off over several rounds of trivia, until one of them wins the right to pay down the balance.

Ladies and gentlemen: It’s debt relief, the game show.

This is not a joke. Nor is it a Black Mirror episode. It’s Paid Off, a new program on the channel TruTV. And at a time when politics and television have become hopelessly entangled, here is television that feels like a highly concentrated, mildly nauseating encapsulation of the zeitgeist. . . .

The show craftily skewers the system that lured its contestants into debt, intermixing questions about Beyoncé and condoms with earnest facts about the moral blight of for-profit colleges. But despite its good intentions, Paid Off accidentally provides a glitzy simulation of the labor market. Onstage and off, individuals use their knowledge and skills to compete for income against their peers, and the winnings are fundamentally scarce, if not zero-sum. . . .

As I watched one contestant walk away with what was essentially a Turner Broadcasting grant to offset the long-term decline in state spending on public colleges and universities, I felt transported to a disconcertingly plausible dystopia. It’s a social-media welfare state, where right-wing antagonism toward subsidizing education and health care had merged with the left’s enduring dominion in entertainment to produce a kind of game show–lottery shadow government, in which the middle and lower classes apply to television programs to compete for precisely the sort of welfare that is, in almost every other developed country, provided by the state. After all, why stop at shows that redistribute cable-television dollars to student debtors? Every year, about 600,000 people declare medical bankruptcy. Fifteen million children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. In 2017, NBCUniversal, Fox, Disney, and Time Warner spent a combined $25 billion on linear television entertainment; let’s get those dollars flowing further down the income ladder. TV programming as crypto-means-testing, why not!