Thursday, August 10, 2017

As If Things Aren't Stupid Enough

I am so tired of stupid stuff. But rather than worry about NoKo nukin' Guam, here are a couple of things that have happened that are just so stupid I can't help myself.

Google...

Have you read the infamous "Google Manifesto" yet? If not, here it is...
Google's Ideological Echo Chamber - How bias clouds our thinking about diversity and inclusion

This was written by James Demore, 28 year old Harvard Phd. in "Systems Biology" and, as of yesterday, no longer an Engineer for Google. Please read it if you have not already, and let's discuss. I have read it several time and am still trying to find what he wrote that is so horrible that women at Google had to take the day off because they feared for...I have no idea or that it required that Google Management dismiss him immediately. It all seemed very reasonable and very centrist to me. His entire premise is summed up thusly:
I hope it’s clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).


And then just because NYC has to be more stupid...

The Debacle that is "Natasha Pierre And The Great Comet of 1812"

This is a musical based on Leo Tolstoy's "War & Peace" (yeah, I know...) that opened in Off-Broadway in 2012 and moved to Broadway in November 2016 with pop opera singer Josh Grobin in the lead. With rave reviews, 12 Tony nominations AND Josh Grobin, one would think it would be a runaway hit. In February, it was announced that Grobin would be leaving the show in July and replaced for a limited appearance by one of the stars of "Hamilton" Okieriete Onaodowan (he originated the role of James Madison). Well, tickets sales have not been so good since he started, so as producers do, they announced that they would not be extending Mr. Onaodowan's run and would be replacing him with Broadway legend Mandy Patinkin hoping this would increase ticket sales.

well, one would think that the producers had decided instead to replace the entire show with an all-white version of "Raisin In The Sun"! How dare they replace a black actor with a white actor! "Outrageous!" they screamed from the rafters! So after all of the sound and fury that this caused, Patinkin gracefully declined to replace Onaodowan. Also as a result of the racist pile-on, the show will now be closing September 3. This is just stupid. This is how it works for producers...their job to get butts in the seats to make money for their investors and to be able to pay the cast/crew/ushers etc. for as long as they can. Onaodowan was not doing that so they decided to do what producers have done since the beginning of time....GET A REALLY BIG SUPERDUPER LEGENDARY BROADWAY STAR LIKE MANDY PATINKIN TO FILL THE SEATS!!!! They didn't realize that once you replace a white actor with a black actor, you can never go back to a white actor even if it's FREAKIN' MANDY PATINKIN!!!

Anyway, what are you thinking? Are you digging your fall-out shelter yet? I hear you can buy one on Amazon. [And for AmazonPrime members shipping is free!]

14 comments:

tryanmax said...

Bev, I believe you caught all my thoughts on Google over on Twitter dot com.

I guess it's true, even in Broadway, that once you go black you never go back. Sorry, sorry. It was just hanging there.

My plan to survive the nuclear holocaust is to mutate. Preppering just isn't my thing.

Anthony said...

My daughters used to be Diary of a Wimpy Kid fans and I read a few of the books. There is a bit where teachers encourage students to share secrets ostensibly in the spirit of fun, but are in fact trying to identify trouble makers. Clearly the engineer didn't read that book.

The Broadway thing is nutty. I was looking forward to taking a month off from work to see the War and Peace musical.

Thus far it's business as usual with North Korea.

Also, Scaramucci sees himself as 2017's Monica Lewinsky. Reporters must still mourn Trump's decision to fire him.

Trump and McConnell are in a pissing match about whose fault the failure to kill Obamacare is. I predict a whole lot of nothing in the near future.

Remember the woman who won big against McDonald's because hot coffee on the groin hurts? KFC is faced with something similar. Shorts and boiling gravy are a apparently a bad combo.

http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2017/08/09/kfc-gravy-reportedly-gave-woman-disgusting-second-degree-burns-claims.html

“We ordered the meal – a bucket of chicken – and got a side of gravy. We were eating in, but they gave it to us as a takeaway and it was in takeaway containers.

“We went to sit down at the table and as I picked up the gravy, the pot was so hot, it was impossible to touch it. I quickly put it down on the table and it fell on to its side.

“The gravy – which was so hot it was bubbling – spilled on my leg.”

The 22-year-old said she had been wearing shorts and the gravy was only on her leg for a few seconds before she brushed it off.

Beth said: “By then my leg was already bubbling, the blisters came up within about five minutes.

“My partner said, ‘You can’t put ice on it. That can cause more damage’, so we went to A&E at Milton Keynes Urgent Care Clinic and they rushed me straight in.

“The doctor told me I had second-degree burns. It was disgusting – they had to pop all the blisters and rip all the skin off. My skin was still burning underneath, so she had to rip two layers of skin off.”

ArgentGale said...

On Google, normal people wouldn't see a horrifying combination of isms and phobias in that memo but we're dealing with leftist crybullies here. Of course they'd run for the fainting couches and safe spaces when confronted with ideas like this, especially when they're backed up by scientific research. And these people are supposed to be the defenders of science?

On the musical, that would be the rational choice in most cases. If Mandy Patinkin is in a show you know you're going to be getting your money's worth. But of course the whiner brigade has to screw that up... Leave it to idiots obsessed with identity politics to defecate all over everything.

BevfromNYC said...

Tryanmax - Please share some of your thoughts on this. They were great.

BevfromNYC said...

Anthony - So, let me guess. KFC didn't have a sign that specifically read like "Our Gravy Is Very Hot. Do not wear shorts and spill it in your lap 'cause HOTNESS burns (and we don't mean your shorty shorts "hotness""

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, This is the left for you. Let me add something too...

Now that the Google guy has been fired, "they" (the media and others) are investigating his background to destroy him. Basically, they are looking for anything they can call false on LinkedIn or whatever to smear him. They are now trying to claim he doesn't actually have a PhD. So HE'S A WITCH!! BURN HIM!

The guy who wrote that he loved his curvy wife... the "Body Positive" people poured over all of his social media until they found something "anti-trans" and they are smearing him for that. So HE'S A WITCH!! BURN HIM!

And so on. Once you anger the left, they don't just disagree with you, they seek to destroy you.

As for the Hamilton guy, that doesn't surprise me. You already see that in football. I honestly think a lot of teams shy away from black quarterbacks because once you have one it becomes "racist" to bench him no matter how much he stinks.

ArgentGale said...

Andrew, that's disgusting but sadly expected at this point. What, exactly, is it going to take for the left to really feel the consequences of this shit? Sorry, but this is probably the biggest thing that they do that pisses me off.

Critch said...

Baltimore had a "Let's Not Kill Anyone for 72 Hours" weekend...yep, it went as expected...3 murders...

Anthony said...

The Pentagon must follow Trump's Twitter feed with great interest.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-military-action-on-venezuela-could-be-counterproductive-2017-8

President Donald Trump said late Friday that he was "not going to rule out a military option" in response to the turmoil in Venezuela.

During a press conference outside his Bedminster resort in New Jersey, Trump said, "We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary."

He demurred when asked for specifics on any such plan.

Not long after his statement, the Pentagon said the White House had not given it any orders regarding Venezuela but that it was "prepared to support ... government efforts to protect our national interests and safeguard US citizens."

Earlier this month, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said he didn't think outside intervention in Venezuela was a possibility.

Kit said...

re North Korea:
The people (on right and left, for their own stupid reasons) who are saying this is just like the Cuban Missile Crisis are wrong. If things get that bad, as Dr. Tom Nichols put it in a recent podcast, "people will feel it." In late October of 1962 people were building bomb shelters in their backyard and stocking up on food.

It's dangerous, but not October 23, 1962 dangerous. Then the fate of the world was in jeopardy.

Anthony said...

On the lighter side of the news there has been violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville Virginia between demonstrators and counterprotesters. The people protesting the rally ought to just stay home. Must suck for locals and cops that have to play referee.

Anthony said...

The white supremacists really dialed it up with that car attack. Trump's response was predictably mealy mouthed but this isn't going to do the alt right any PR favors.

Critch said...

The Nazis and the Stalinists are fighting over which flag is prettier..not a dimes worth of difference between the two.

Anthony said...

Two cops in Charlottesville died in a helicopter crash. What a horrible day.

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