Berkeley’s City Council Actions an Affront To All Who Consider Themselves Liberal

Last month, Berkeley’s City Council issued a declaration that stated, among other things, that the Marine Corps was “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” while blasting military recruitment and the Iraq war. Why the Council thought this was a good thing is beyond me.

Oh, sure, I think the Iraq war needs to end ASAP and that military recruiting can be shady at best. Unfortunately, they all but attacked the Marine Corps and the men and women who serve this country and that not only was shameful, it was downright disrespectful to anyone who puts their life on the line for the greater good of Americans.

Obviously the Council’s bold statement didn’t go over well with many people, especially amongst Republican Senators. A number of Republican Senators sponsored a bill that would take over $2 million of funding from Berkeley and give it to the Marine Corps. Over the course of a week and a half, the Council has received thousands of e-mails on the issue, primarily angrily opposing the Council’s actions. And, of course, there are the death threats some Council members have received.

In the world of politics, this is a major cluster fuck for Berkeley. As I said before, I’m against the war in Iraq but I could never issue statements and the like basically calling a branch of the United States military a bunch of scumbags (paraphrasing here).

Of course, the Council has already begun its backpedaling to try and minimize the damage. How could they not? As someone who is liberal-at-heart, I’m pretty disgusted by these events and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only liberal who feels this way.  It almost makes me feel ashamed to call myself liberal because I really hate being associated with people who have their heads so far up their collective asses that they’ve lost touch with reality.

And as with any sort of controversy, there will be rivaling protests: a group called Code Pink who are antiwar (and therefore anti-military…apparently) and Move America Forward who are arguably the country’s largest troop support group.  To sum it up, Code Pink has apparently no problem throwing troops under the bus while bashing Bush’s war while Move America Forward seems to be down-to-earth and realizes there’s a difference between supporting a war and being antiwar while supporting your troops.

RIP Super Bowl Ads

I’m sure you all know by now that the Patriots lost in Super Bowl XLII and that most of you are pretty ecstatic about that (that is, unless you’re a Patriots fan). I for one was completely depressed last night about it, but at the same time, quite ok with the outcome due to the fact that the Patriots have won 3 Super Bowls since the beginning of the century. No good reason for me to whine and moan about the results of the game last night, is there?

But to add insult to injury, the ads last night were less than memorable…if that. I’m not going to break down the meaning of the ad and how it related to the product it was endorsing. I’m just going to say the majority of the ads just plain sucked and were far from entertaining. But nothing to really write home about…unless you count writing about it in a blog as writing home…

The Budweiser ads were funny, yet dumb as all hell, which is to be expected. Unfortunately, the Anheuser-Busch company has more than enough money to run several ads throughout the course of the Super Bowl which kind of takes away from the entertainment value of the ads in general. There IS such a thing as too much of a decent thing.  It didn’t help matters that these commercials were strategically placed to make sure they were the first and last commercials we saw.  I get it.  Bud Light, the watered down queen of beers is the official whatever of the NFL.  Great, NFL players are nothing but frat boys too cheap to spring for real beer (or they just can’t handle the good stuff).

The Doritos commercial in the beginning was interesting, and quite cool for that girl, but lacked the usual panache that we’ve all become accustomed to with Super Bowl advertising. And I did see the irony of some girl singing about your heart in a Doritos commercial. I’m not too up on recent trends in the medical field, but I’m pretty sure that snack foods such as Doritos are not good. At all. Of course, the later Doritos commercial with the giant mouse jumping through the wall to beat the crap out of the dude sitting in the chair was pretty damned funny, even if I’m not sure why.

The crap-fest continued with Pepsi commercials featuring the likes of Timberlake and the random characters trying to give a nod to the SNL skits (at least, I think that’s what they were doing with those head-bobs). I’m sorry, but, those commercials aren’t going to make me want to switch my allegience with Coca-Cola over to Pepsi. It’s just not going to happen, not with those kinds of commercials (although, the father at the end of the Timberlake commercial picking up his flat panel was somewhat funny).

I may be biased (see above), but, the Coke commercials seemed to have some nice material. From a giant Stewie and Wonderdog duking it out over a parade float bottle of Coke to Carver and Frist realizing that politics don’t have to be divisive, those commercials seemed to be ok. Super Bowl worthy? Not too sure, but certainly better than most of the crap we saw (including on the field).

Those god-awful Hyundai (I think it was Hyundai) commercials hawking their up-and-coming “luxury” sedan that’s supposed to rival BMW and the like were so unimaginative that I have to believe that the majority of their budget went into paying for the ad spots. Couple that with those salesgenie.com commercials and you have yourself an effective campaign to get people to turn off their televisions.

The best of the best had to have been the FedEx, Tide-To-Go, Planters, and the first E*Trade commercials. Those were pretty damned funny, entertaining, and actually managed to make me laugh as the Giants manhandled the Patriots. Those were on my A-list for sure and I have no doubt most people who watched all the commercials would agree with me.

Of course I can’t end this on a good note, so I have to mention the incessant advertisements Fox felt the need to shove down our throats. I wasn’t planning on watching those shows they kept showing commercial after commercial for, and I’m certainly not going to watch those shows now. I don’t think marketing teams understand that subjecting people to the same old song and dance over and over again just makes people hate you and your product. I know those Chevy commercials haven’t done wonders for Mellencamp.

I also have to say I was pretty sick and tired of the local commercials telling me to Vote No and to Vote Yes on Propositions 94-97 or whatever.  I hate politics.  Mixing what I hate with seeing something that makes me depressed is just not cool, man.

It seems like ever since the whole “wardrobe malfunction” incident a few years back everyone has toned things down out of fear that the FCC would be cracking open corporate accounts and walking away with truckloads of money.  Absolutely terrible.

Calling Out All Giants Fans

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve made some incoherent post on here. Been busy, but I have some time on my hands today since I’ve got Jury Duty (which sucks royally, by the way…especially since it’s “imposed” on me. No, really, that’s what the summons I got in the mail says!). Anyway, I’m semi-depressed, but not too depressed, that the Patriots lost. I really can’t be depressed since, you know, they’ve already won 3 Superbowls this decade.

Back on track here…I’m calling out all you Giants fans who booed Eli Manning and the Giants. Who talked shit about him throughout most of the regular season (especially during their struggles). You “fans” are nothing more than fairweather bandwagoners who should be barred from watching any sort of sports whatsoever (NASCAR is fine, it really isn’t a sport). The Gaints deserved to win, they played harder throughout the entire game and the score shows.

The fans, on the other hand, don’t deserve this Superbowl victory. As I told my friend Wade, I hope that when Eli is doing the victory parade in New Jersey that he has both middle fingers up the entire time while there’s a sign behind him that says “Where the Fuck Were You When We Were Struggling? Oh, Yeah, That’s Right: BOOING ME!” I’m also hoping that he pre-records a message saying “How does my Superbowl MVP’d ass taste now?!” If I were that kind of fan, I’d be ashamed of myself. Unfortunately, knowing most New Yorkers and Jersey folks, they won’t feel any sort of shame at all and will pretend they never booed Eli once this season or any other previous seasons.

As a Patriots fan, I truly mean it when I say the Giants deserved that win. The Patriots played like crap the entire game and didn’t seem to make any meaningful effort until partway through the 4th quarter.

Of course, I’m more disappointed with the lackluster Superbowl ads, but, that’s a whole other issue in its own.