Damnation

Ah, a new feature! As the week wraps up, this is a short list of things that The Common Man, over the past seven days, has either damned or condemned:

1) Time Magazine
Not two hours after The Common Man had sat with The Boy, reading and watching Baby Einstein, Time.com has the gall to come out with this article on how bad Baby Einstein is. Damn you, Time! Stop checking your facts (The Common Man is getting tired of fact checking; c'mon, chickens, take a risk!) and report news quicker. That's 20 minutes of development time that The Boy doesn't get back. Who's going to let The Boy live in their basement when he's 20 minutes of development behind everyone else trying to get a job out of college, Time Magazine? You? Not The Common Man, The Common Man tells you that. C'mon Time, get your head in the game. Give me news when I need it, not when you want to report it. Lazy bastards.

2) Spoilers
The Common Man has long had a policy regarding the Harry Potter books. He waits until just before the movie is released, then he reads the book so that, when he inevitably sees the movie, he remembers more of the plot and has more to complain about (The Common Man does like to complain). Sadly, soon after the release of the sixth book, The Common Man stumbled upon the big plot twist at the end on, of all sites, ESPN.com. Thus, was the surprise ruined. The Common Man held out for as long as he could, readers, sticking to his policy, but he's had to forgo it in the past week and has zoomed through book 6 and is engaged in fierce battle with book 7. Damn you, irresponsible internet writers, for spoiling plots and ruining surprises. Damn you all to Hell.

3) Primaries
With so many presidential primary seasons in full swing, there is a great deal of political activity with few actual political resolutions. There are debates going on right now across the country and it's hard to keep track of who is saying what and when and where, because the primary leapfrogging being done by South Carolina, California, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, and other states requires candidates to get their messages out and convince voters earlier and earlier. As it stands, the Iowa Caucuses may have to be held in December of this year to meet its legal obligation to be the first in the country. This is ridiculous. The Common Man is tired of all these debates and wants some time to make up his damn mind. He is becoming convinced that there needs to be a national primary held over the course of one day in June in order to reduce influence over the process by small, crazy states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and to give the country enough time to get to know the candidates. The Common Man condemns political primaries and all they have come to stand for, the 10-word answer, the 7-second soundbite, and Gotcha! style debate.

4) White people
The New York Times reported this week that many areas in the country are in the process of having ethnic minority populations as their majority population. This has led to hand-wringing and fear-mongering by certain right-wing personalities that this country is becoming "less white." Yesterday, on Glen Beck's radio program, The Common Man even heard one idiot guest host wonder whether a country has a right to determine what color its population is going to be, and advocating some kind of "Master Plan" to make sure that whites remain a majority for a long as possible. Their concern, supposedly, is that "American culture," whatever the hell that is, is going to be supplanted by, primarily, a Mexican or African-American one (as though the finger prints of African-Americans are not all over White America's favorite foods, music, clothing, and art already). So, in response, The Common Man condemns white people for not having a culture that is worth emulating. Seriously, white people, you have bad food and bad music (Michael Bolton). Your contributions to popular fashion (disco, shoulder pads, piano-key neckties, and grunge) have been egregious. And even your precious language, with all of its exceptions, and special rules, and internal contradictions is less sophisticated than Spanish's simplicity. Hell, you want a language worth salvaging, try Russian, which has evolved past the point of needing articles. If you want to salvage your culture, Whitey, have a culture worth salvaging.