The Stormy Present – Society

Readership is down because of the holidays and I’m feeling lazy, so I figured we’d copy everyone else and do a 2008 Stormy Present Society Highlight Reel. So here are some posts that we’ve done since the beginning of The Stormy Present (we started the site in March ‘08), which I think are worth reading if you missed them the first time around.

I Am Michael Vick – This is the post that started it all.

The Top 5 TV Shows of All Time – Read the comments because I had to amend my initial list.

The Importance of Satire - Easily one of the best posts we’ve ever had and Brad’s first appearence on our site.

Why Aren’t We Watching 30 Rock? – Thank you Jim, because this post got me into 30 Rock and my lady friend and I laughed all the way through the season 1 dvds.

What is Adventure? - My ode to Alby Mangels and maybe my favorite of all the posts I’ve written.

Greatest Actor of Our Generation? – Heath Ledger, hands down.

Is the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the Most Disappointing Movie of the Century? – Yes, yes it is.

When She Left Aiden, That Said It All - Sadly, this post about Sex in the City is the best thing (both funny and smart) I’ve written for the Society page.

The Office Space of High Fidelity – Brad perfectly captures what it’s like to be a 20 something.

Top 5 Female Athletes – Our most popular post because it has links to pictures of hot women.

Top 5 Sports Movies – Great debate ensued so read the comments.

Top 5 Authors (of Fiction) – More excellent debate so read the comments.

The Hemingway Challenge – Just fun stuff.

Tis the season for TV stations and sentimental relatives to try and force you to watch the same old Christmas movies you have to watch every year around this time. Well you know what, I’m tired of watching It’s a Wonderful Life or The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (I’m especially not watching the remake with Jim Carey). But before you criticize me for being a Grinch myself, let me offer you a list of some movies that I believe should become Christmas season classics because they take place during Christmas time but are good movies to watch year round (if I you think I missed one feel free to comment in the comment section and enjoy all the links).

Less Than Zero – This is kind of a random one, but actually a pretty good 80s flick. It’s about a guy (Andrew McCarthy) who comes back home to California on Christmas break from his fancy East coast college. His family is completely dysfunctional, his ex-girlfriend is involved with a nefarious crew of characters and his best friend (Robert Downey Jr) has become a complete coke addicted degenerate. It’s a little depressing, but written by the dude who wrote American Psycho.

Go – Another random movie that came out when people were just starting to make those movies where there are a bunch of seemingly different story lines that all intertwine at the end. An extremely underrated movie that was ahead of its time and set a trend for complex movies plots, which I appreciate. It only vaguely alludes to Christmas, but hey, it stars a young Katie Holmes.

Trading Places – Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis, what more do you need? Aykroyd in the Santa outfit at the party is classic.

Love Actually – I know, I know. But dammit all if that isn’t a good movie! It takes place around Christmas time and if you are trying to get earn brownie points with your lady friend this is the best option you have because it’s a chick flick that is funny enough for guys to enjoy. My only question is that Alan Rickman cheats on his wife with the secretary, his wife finds out, and that’s the end of their story. What?! The Prime Minister gets the slightly chubby chick, the porno stand-ins are going to go on a date, the writer proposes to the Spanish chick, and amidst all that happiness a marriage faces a HUGE problem that never gets resolved. Someone explain that to me.

The Last Boy Scout – Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans in a movie about a corrupt football team owner; during bowl season what could be more appropriate?!?! Didn’t think it was a Christmas movie until I remembered that Willis’ daughter draws a picture of “Satan Claus” because she’s mad at her dad. A truly good action movie that is hugely underrated and as far as I can tell the only draw back is that I have a hard time buying Damon Wayans as a former pro football player (he’s too skinny).

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Honestly one of the best movies I’ve seen in the past 3 years or so. Just a funny and really, really smart action/detective movie staring Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer, who plays a gay guy. Seriously, rent this movie, you won’t regret it. I’d put it at the top of the list in terms of quality, but it really has nothing to do with Christmas other than when it alludes to it as Downey Jr is stealing a present for his kid and when the hot girl in the movie is wearing a Santa outfit.

Gremlins – As a kid I must have watched this movie at least once a month. I thought it was hilarious. It’s the movie Jim Henson would have made if he was on a bad acid trip (not a stretch of the imagination considering anyone who came up with some of those muppets had to be on some sort of hallucinogen). Gremlins is a wildly underrated movie and it stars Phoebe Cates who is not only a great example of what I like to call ‘80s hot’, but her character tells the weirdest ‘why I hate Christmas’ character development story that has ever happened in all of cinema. Seriously, the scene when she talks about why she hates Christmas is the most oddly placed super depressing monologue in movie history. It is completely unnecessary and non sequitur with the rest of the film, but somehow all of that adds up to a pure 80s and Christmas classic.

Die Hard – John ‘effing’ McClane! It’s a Christmas time movie because John (Bruce Willis), a New York cop, goes to his estranged wife’s office Christmas party in LA. Of course terrorists, led by Alan Rickman, attack the party and John McClane proceeds to kick ass in the name of St Nick. Bottom line, this is one of the greatest action movies of all time and any holiday gathering would be augmented by viewing All-American John McClane beat people up barefoot and then proudly proclaim one of the best lines in all of cinema; “Yippie ka yey mother fucker!” (note: Die Hard 2 also takes place during Christmas, but it sucked).

First some housecleaning, the Stormy Present Enemies List has had three submissions; the Daily Kos, the TSA, and PETA. The Daily Kos was shot down but the other two are close to ascension onto the Enemies List. So go to those two posts and vote on whether or not they should be added to the Enemies List (which means you have to challenge them to a fist fight if you see them on the street). Onto the post at hand …

Time Magazine named President-elect Obama Time’s Man of the Year (TMOTY). Now I get the historic implication of his electoral victory, but isn’t there a case to be made that we should hold off heaping praise on President-elect Obama until he actually DOES something? I mean when you think about it, running for President is just asking the American people to give you the opportunity to work toward the betterment of the country and the world. Being elected isn’t a Good in and of itself, so why praise a guy for just getting the opportunity to do Good before he actually proves that he is able or willing to do something Good? Let’s reserve judgment instead of setting the bar so low that all a guy has to do is become powerful to be ordained as great. Let’s insist that once you achieve power, you have to use it to improve the plight of our country and the world.

Time’s always been bad at picking the TMOTY. They are consistently intellectually lazy. They started doing it in 1927 and since then every US President except Hoover, Coolidge, and Ford has been the TMOTY.

When they aren’t being lazy by just picking the guy that won the election, they fail to fully anticipate what the person’s future actions will be. In 1938, Time made Hitler the TMOTY. The following year they gave the honor to Josef Stalin, who was honored for a second time in 1942. There are some other dubious characters on the list including: Mohammed Mossadegh (1951), Nikita Khrushchev (1957), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), and so on a so forth.

And when it isn’t an election year and they can’t find a fitting geopolitical antagonist, they just make up an abstract choice for TMOTY. They’ve given it to The American Fighting Man twice (1950 and 2003), which I’m fine with, but other abstract choices include: Baby Boomers (1966), Middle Americans (1969), the Endangered Earth (1988), and “You” (2006), which is supposed to represent the Web 2.0 programs that are run by input from the public (ie Wikipedia, Linux, etc). For full list of all the people they’ve given the TMOTY too click this link to TMOTY winner Wikipedia.

My point is the TMOTY honor is pretty shitty. It is either a lazy choice or it honors a dishonorable person or it is given to an abstract idea. But complaining about it won’t do much, so I say we take a page out Deadspin’s book and name our own person of the year. Well call it The Stormy Present Person of the Year (SPPOTY for short).

Unlike the TMOTY, the SPPOTY will go to someone that actually contributed something meaningful to society over the past year. Feel free to leave your suggestions for this prestigious honor in the comment section (I will then ignore those suggestions and give the award to the person I already have in mind) or you want to bitch about other TMOTY honorees in the comment section that’s cool too.

Background Info: 

PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and is an animal rights organization that has existed since 1980.  They are dedicated to ending animal cruelty, especially animal testing and the use of animals for clothing and food.

The Argument:

Because this website is dedicated to civil intellectual discourse, I believe it is an utmost necessity to include PETA on our enemies list.  Animal rights are a serious concern, and the actions of PETA do very little to help that cause.  While it is true that PETA has been at the forefront of some very important animal abuse cases, their efforts have increasingly become overly radical and detrimental to the animal rights movement as a whole.

While other organizations such as the ASPCA go about their mission in a highly visible and respectable way, members of PETA choose to engage in acts of vandalism, throwing everything from pies to paint to a dead raccoon, yes I said a dead raccoon, at people involved with the fur trade.  Needless to say, such actions are not only unnecessary but also incredibly harmful to the credibility of the animal rights movement.  Is fur murder?  That’s your opinion, and it doesn’t give you a right to throw paint on anyone who disagrees.

PETA is a huge organization and could use its vast resources in any number of constructive ways.  Despite this, however, they spend an exorbitant amount of money on advertising, such as their infamous, and arguably sexist, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign, which features famous actresses in the nude.  They also have the audacity to compare people who care about a dog’s pedigree to members of the Ku Klux Klan.  I’m going to save my rage for this particular ad for the comment section, but suffice it to say that making that comparison doesn’t exactly make me feel inclined to donate to their cause.  Just to juxtapose their tactics, think of the ASPCA’s ad with Sarah McLachlan’s “In the Arms of an Angel” in the background.  Which makes you actually think about the plight of animals?

One final note: PETA is very vocal concerning adopting animals from rescue shelters, due to their claim that for every animal bought from a breeder, a rescue animal is euthanized.  Despite this fuzzy math, PETA themselves are responsible for animal euthanasia.

The Bottom Line:

An organization with the national reach of PETA could do wonderful things for the animal rights movement, which is a very serious concern.  People can act deplorably towards animals, and oversight is necessary.  Despite their vast resources, PETA chooses to instead engage in frivolous advertising and vandalism.  PETA might do a lot to help animals, but their most visible acts are usually ones that are detrimental to the movement as a whole, and therefore they must be stopped.

Possible drawbacks:  No more “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” ads.

Our first submission, the Daily Kos, was rejected (but I ask you consider regarding the DK as our rival). This is our second submission provided by Michael Orr. Thus, he submits to the Midnight Society: the Transportation Security Administration.

Background Info:

The TSA stands for Transportation Security Administration. They oversee many aspects of safety measures in the country including cars, trains, boats and my focus, aviation. The TSA employs thousands of security guards who are the first wave of interaction at airports. They operate metal detectors, wave wands, open and filter through bags and occasionally arrest suspicious individuals. They also carry out the ‘no-fly list’ enforcement.

The Argument:

This argument is simple. The TSA is a bullshit, reactionary group that serves little purpose but intimidation and the slowing down of what should be private business. If there is any greater example of government interference in private business, I’d like to know. Airlines cannot simply sell their tickets and provide a service. They have to allow the government to individually check bags and customers before even entering the terminal.

Aside from that side, a lesser argument, TSA kills the morale of the flying public. Whether it’s the nuisance of taking off one’s shoes because one guy, one time tried to blow up a plane like that, or only being allowed to carry three ounce bottles (link: http://www.tsa.gov/graphics/images/bag_dimensions.jpg) of things like contact solution, lotion, shampoo, tooth paste or whatever else you might want on you in case the airlines hose you and cancel your flight, the regulations are a complete joke. They only ‘prevent’ someone from trying to do the exact same thing that was already tried. Do we really think that’s how terrorists work? Do we even think they’d want to use airplanes again?

Finally, the biggest joke is how stringent the regulations are upon entering the airport but nowhere else. If you can come up with a way to forge your boarding pass (link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security) then you’re home free once through the TSA mostly for-show security.

The Bottom Line:

The point is that while security and safety at airports are definitely important in today’s world, the TSA is pretty much bullshit. It doesn’t address any of the real threats to flying and just puts so many small restrictions on unimportant things (like how you can’t bring in a bottle of water from outside security) that it ruins the process for everyone. Not everyone enjoys flying, but it used to at least be an event that was mildly interesting (for non-business travelers). Now it’s a horror story waiting to happen and while that’s often the airline’s fault it’s been increasingly due to being named similarly to someone on the ‘no-fly list’ or carrying a 3.1 ounce bottle of contact solution.

Possible Negatives:

Being put on the ‘no-fly list’ or having bags emptied upon every visit to any airport.

The Stormy Present Enemies List was inspired by President Nixon, who kept a list of political enemies, and Ernest Hemingway, who challenged contemporaries he didn’t like to fist fights. Thus, it is only fitting that we make the first submission to this list something that is political and indictes one of our contemporaries. Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we should add The Daily Kos to our enemies list.

Background Info:

The Daily Kos is what’s called a group blog and discussion forum that purports to give regular folks a space in which to air their thoughts on political matters and discuss these issues with the general public. Seems innocent enough. However, they are not actually committed to any sort of deliberative discourse, which is evidenced by the fact that they openly admit partisanship. The men and women of the “DK” readily disclose the fact that the DK serves as a ‘netroots’ organization for the Democratic Party. Their stated purpose, therefore, is to grow, strengthen, and influence the Democratic Party; not to generate productive and serious discussion.

The Argument:

Because the DK is a group blog and discussion forum it claims to speak on behalf of “the people”. But can you really claim to be a legitimate vox populi if admittance to the platform for discussion is incumbent upon a particular political affiliation? I think not. The DK is flatly not objective and as such it does not render any amount of deliberative discourse. Instead of productive and open conversation, analysis, and discussion, the DK not only gives people a space to simply go on longwinded tirades unchecked by any semblance of objective fact checking, it also encourages such partisan behavior, which ultimately promotes mindless rants filled with vitriol directed at political actors whom the DK people don’t agree with.

Since there is a specific agenda, honest and objective discussion or analysis is impossible. This subjectivity inevitably leads to simpleminded taunting of presumed opposition to their specific agenda. The worst part of this is that because the DK uses what can be an open forum, the internet and blogs, they are able to claim to be populists speaking with the voice of the people and that grants them a degree of credit in the political world. Media members site the DK frequently and members of the Democratic Party actively court their support. Meanwhile, members of the Republican Party use the DK to rally support among their base by claiming that the DK is part of the ‘evil media bias’. Thus, the DK is actually detrimental to the political climate of the United States. The country would benefit from frank and honest deliberative discourse when it comes to the problems facing our nation. While the DK claims to offer a forum for discussion, their partisanship discourages objective discussion of serious issues.

Unfortunately, people seek that which is easy and the DK offers an easy route by which to allege one’s own intellectualism. Hence, as the DK has found great success and popularity selling false intellectualism to the public, it has corroded the national environment to the point that deliberative discourse is increasingly difficult to come by.

We started this site due to the fact that we are intellectual individuals who enjoy each other’s opinions on subjects that demand serious consideration. This site allows us to trade ideas with one another in a forum that is open to all ideas and does not seek any sort of specific agenda. In this environment, productive discourse can take place. At the DK such discourse is impossible. We encourage intellectualism. They offer faux intellectualism.

The Bottom Line:

The DK stands for and promotes all that this site, The Stormy Present, stands for. They are a detriment to the promotion of a national conversation, which is necessary for political and social advancement. They are therefore a detriment to the country, stifle deliberative discourse in general, and should henceforth be declared as an enemy to The Stormy Present.

Possible Negatives:

The founder of the DK is Markos Moulitsas, who, if we add the Daily Kos to the enemies list we would have to challenge to a fist fight if we saw him, may look like a scrawny dweeb, but he was in the army. So he probably would know how to fight.

The Daily Kos has considerable pull and by setting our website up as a rival to theirs, which would be the result of placing them on the enemies list, they might use that pull to destroy us.

Now we go to the comment section in which you the readers will debate my argument and then either state, “I’ve got your back” or “You’re on your own”. If three people of high regard ‘get my back’, then the Daily Kos will be added to our Enemies List. Once on the list, we will regard them as our enemy and rival website and will be bound by honor to challenge its creator Markos Moulitsas to a fist fight if we happen to see him at any point in time in any setting. For further information on the list and the process go here. I look forward to your comments.

President Richard Nixon was famous, or perhaps infamous, for having an extensive enemies list. He kept the list and then used his accrued power to punish those unfortunate enough to find themselves on it. While I don’t aspire to be like President Nixon, I do think that I have some of his qualities within me (after all, he went to Duke Law School).

I do, however, idolize Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway famously dismissed fellow writers and openly criticized their work. He and F. Scott Fitzgerald became friends in Paris as ex-pats, but there friendship was famously tumultuous. It is alleged that at one point the two got into a fist fight. Not surprising given Hemingway’s cantankerous nature.

As for me, I sit here today a splendiferous and world renowned hater. I am old school to a fault. I hate just about everything that defines the age in which I live. In academic terms I suppose I’d be described as a neo-luddite but in the parlance of our times I think the best phrase to describe me is “a hater.” My friends can testify to this mindset and I gladly embrace it as it allows me to be both honest and interesting; two things that are sadly in short order these days.

So it is with great excitement that I would like to announce the creation of The Stormy Present Enemies List.

The intention of this list is simple: to identify people (or even inanimate objects) that are so unbelievably terrible human beings (or inanimate objects) that if we saw them (or it) walking down the street we would challenge them to a fist fight.

This, I believe, combines the organized anger of President Nixon with the brash, fist fight loving nature of Hemingway.

Here’s how I intend for this to work:

Submission à A writer will post an article under the title “Enemies List Submission: (insert person or object)”. They will then explain why the person/object deserves to be on our master enemies list. Note that submission of a person/object is very serious as you are implying that we should challenge this person/object to a fight if we see them. Also note that the persons or object’s size, athletic prowess, gender, age, etc will not be taken into account. Thus, if someone is on the list and you then see that person on the street, you must challenge them to a fight even if doing so will probably lead to you being severely beaten or you being publically scorned for beating up a woman/old person/etc. In short, this is serious business and submissions should therefore be carefully considered.

Ratification à Commenters must then ratify the submission. Commenters (in the comment section of the post) will analyze the argument and then either state “I’ve got your back” or “you’re on your own”. If three people of high regard (ie regular readers and/or creators/contributors to this site) ‘get your back’ then the person/object is listed on the official Stormy Present Enemies List.

Consequence à Once a person/object is listed on the official Enemies List, you, as a devoted reader/contributor to The Stormy Present are bound by honor to challenge the person/object to a fight if by chance you encounter them in any setting of life. You are only excused from challenging them to a fist fight if you vehemently objected to the submission but were outvoted. Otherwise, if you submitted the name or ratified it you are strictly bound by honor to challenge the person/object to a fist fight if you encounter them regardless of physical or reputable damage that you may incur by fighting this person/object; no exceptions.

I will make the first submission some time this week. We will then see if you, our dear friends and readers, are man enough to take a stand against douche bagery.

p.s. I suggest you start exercising regularly