"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red

"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done

"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ

Mar 16, 2012

Broadcast Cares

Wife puts on the telly to catch the weather in the morning. That means a local ABC affiliate bleats its mindless blather into our otherwise...familial haven. We all have our vices. I read science fiction and fantasy, she cares about the weather.

Yesterday, unfortunately, we also ended up having this inflicted upon us, after the local weather flipped back over to the cow-farting noises which comprise the majority of Good Morning America's version of asinine badinage:

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In case you were smart or clever enough to resist the lure of the merely foolish, and restrained yourself from clicking the "play" tab, the above is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of strained verbiage and breathless warning. GMA is worried for you, and for your children, and for the health problems caused by your endless capacity for stupidity.

A great danger has gone viral into the world.

No, it's not one of the biological nightmares cooked up by the Army at Fort Detrick. And it's not a video of Obammy getting a well earned strychnine pie in the eye, damn it.

It's the "cinnamon challenge." If you're wondering what that is - and you're not, because you're reading this blog, and clearly do not have better things to do with your time - watch the video. It's frightening. Shocking. Unseemly, even.

Youngish humans are filming themselves attempting to hold a spoonful of cinnamon in their mouths, for some number of seconds. It's turrible, I know. Dangerous. Stupid. The folly of the human condition, and all that.

Thankfully, we've got the balloon heads at GMA on the look out.

It almost reminds me of the time and effort they took to produce this segment on the dangers attendant upon signing the dotted line on the recruitment papers for the Army, the Air Force, the Navy or the Marines:

4 comments:

fish said...

We got a very earnest phone message from our school about the very dangerous "fainting game" that has been sweeping the nation's schools. Because kids never ever figured out before if you hyperventilate then stand up quickly, you might pass out, and occasionally kids might do it on purpose.

Randal Graves said...

DON'T EAT THE BROWN APPLE SEEDS.

Joe said...

GMA is the epitome of everything that's wrong with this country. Your brain will die from overexposure to it.

gamefaced said...

i would just like to let all these cinnamon swallowing hopefuls know, if you also add a spoonful of raw honey and wash it down with the tiniest swig of pure lemon juice - you'll be doing your body a favor. it's still tough to get used to, but totally doable.

sorry jack that as nothing to do with your point.

some actors try to use their publicity to fight causes they feel strongly about. you know, it's the thought that counts. counts toward what, exactly, i'm not sure. people like to feel as if they're doing their part to fix the wrongs of the world. but the majority, i believe, just can't except the reality of our government, military and prison system complexities and only know how to pick a side from within, as opposed to rejecting the relevancy of all three completely.