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December 28, 2010

More lessons in social media

Dear old Buffalo is currently at the center of the hockey universe, where the annual World Junior Championship is happening. The best hockey players under 20 are in town, and some really good hockey is being played. Of course, many of the players have never set foot in Buffalo before, and are somewhat immune to its charms. Emerson Etem, a native of a sterling citadel himself - Long Beach - was not best pleased about it. He ranted thusly on his Twitter page:

much needed day off, buffalo is a ghost town!! the worst city ever, it makes medicine hat look like paradise, never thought ide say that

Now, Buffalonians are a proud lot, and do not react too kindly to outsiders criticizing the Queen City. Some fans (I don't how many, exactly) are outraged, and, I would think, rightfully so.

Etem, on the other hand, got a good talking-to from some PR folks, and did the ol' I didn't mean it dance:

Etem stood tall during a barrage of questions about Buffalo and his comments.
"I think it’s a great host city, and I’m definitely happy to be here," Etem said after the morning skate. "I think it was interpreted in many different ways. My point to get across was not to put down a great host city like this. I know a lot of people put in time and effort to make this thing possible. For me, it’s the middle of winter. People aren’t out. It’s really cold outside. Like I said, the point for me was not to put down Buffalo.
"It’s a poorly written Tweet by me. I meant bad conditions. I came from Medicine Hat, from a Midwestern city, it was warm out, then I come here and not a lot of people are out, like I said. It’s expected. It’s the middle of winter. I was here three, four years ago. I won a national championship here, and that was in springtime. That was an energetic city. I know what it’s like to be here when everyone is out and about. That was the point.
"It’s a great, historic town for sports, and I realize that. Like I said, it’s a poorly written Tweet by me, and I’m sorry for the confusion. I just kind of want to move on."

Now, I don't necessarily believe this apology - he meant what he said, although he obviously didn't think anyone would notice. That, of course, was a mistake.

However, the guy is only 18 - I said some pretty dumb things when I was 18 - and, I suspect, Buffalo is not the sort of place a typical 18 year old would want to go on vacation. Hopefully this will be a lesson to him - to watch what he says online, and to give Buffalo a chance. If you look around, dear Emerson, you'll find lots of great places to go.

Posted at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2010

When not to post Facebook status updates

I love a good story of somebody who runs onto the field during sporting events. But I think the code is rather simple - run onto the field, do your thing, and get off the field. Don't approach players. Don't taunt security. Sometimes, you might end up like the gentleman pictured above, who crossed Philadelphia security and was tased for his trouble.

But this fellow, who apparently has become a celebrity "pitch invader," as they are known in Europe, made the mistake of crashing the field at a match in Abu Dhabi. After disrupting the Club World Cup final, Abu Dhabi police arrested Italian citizen Mario Ferri and confiscated his passport. He then hatched a plan to smuggle himself out on a freighter. All was going well, but somehow the police got wind of his plans. Whoops:

His passport in the hands of local police as he awaited trial, Ferri decided to smuggle himself out of the Emirates in the hold of a passing cruise ship, only to be promptly arrested after he made the mistake of announcing his secret plan on Facebook, telling fans: "I hope they don't catch me, otherwise I will be in a heap of trouble."

Real good, man. Real good. I mean, sometimes you shouldn't talk about things on Facebook. Do you think Andy Dufresne, had he had Facebook, would have updated on the progress of his prison escape while it was in progress? Of course not!

Posted at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2010

Tunnel vision

Now that I work in downtown Chicago, I have come to learn about the Chicago Pedway. It's a system of tunnels pedestrians can use to walk between various buildings in the Loop, without having to go outside during the harsh winter.

Unfortunately, it doesn't go many places. As you can see from this map, many segments of it are unconnected to other segments, and some bits of it are only for one block. For some reason, this really annoys me.

The most useful part of it is the area around the Daley Center and the Thompson Center, but sadly I have no way to get to those areas. By the time I am, I'm already where I need to go. Other places, there are no signs, or doors are locked. The last time I was down there, I was afraid I was going to get mugged. What's the point of that?

In contrast, I was in Minneapolis a few times last winter. If I complain about the Chicago winter, slap me, because Minneapolis is worse. Not only does it snow, it is consistently frigid. I'm not talking high teens/low twenties. I'm talking about single digit and sub-zero temperatures. That, my friend, is insane.

But Minneapolis has an awesome pedway. It's like eight miles long, connected, easy to get around, and has shops and restaurants. It was truly remarkable. One gets the feeling the average denizen of Minneapolis spends a great deal of time in that pedway. Because, even though Minneapolis is a beautiful and clean city, sometimes you just want to stay inside when it's cold. Hopefully we can get a more well-connected system like that here.

Posted at 05:33 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2010

Bah humbug

Well folks, it's almost time for Christmas, which means hipsters everywhere are throwing Ugly Sweater Parties. I still am not sure what the original point of Christmas Sweaters are - they're wool sweaters, with pictures of snowmen, Santa, reindeer and trees on them - and they are almost always hideous. Why a person would wear one, unironically, is mysterious to me. Alls I know is my dear parents did so, back in the 80's. So who knows?

Anyway, now people wear them for fun, and go to bars and have contests to see who can find the ugliest sweater. However, know who doesn't think this is amusing? The administrators at Battlefield High School in Manassas, Virginia:

They call themselves the "Christmas Sweater Club" because they wear the craziest ones they can find. They also sing Christmas songs at school and try their best to spread Christmas cheer.

Now all 10 of them are in trouble because of what they did at their school.

"They said, 'maliciously maim students with the intent to injure.' And I don't think any of us here intentionally meant to injure anyone, or did," said Zakk Rhine, a junior at Battlefield High School.

The boys say they were just tossing small two-inch candy canes to fellow students as they entered school. The ones in plastic wrap that are so small they often break apart.

Now, the school administrators say there is more to the story than what the students are saying, which is probably true. Parents say this is a subtle war on Christmas, which I don't believe at all. Quite frankly, it seems like a bunch of high school kids acting stupid, and getting punished for it. It just so happens their stupid act involved Christmas, making it a skirmish in the War on Christmas. Now, toss me a candy cane.

Posted at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2010

Wrong on many, many levels

Apparently this fall some fellow was selling a book that was, essentially, a guide for pedophiles. It's basically the most horrible thing I've ever heard about. Amazon stopped selling it after a boycott, and its author was rightly vilified. However, nobody arrested the author, until Polk County, Florida, stepped in:

"You cannot engage or depict children in a harmful relationship," said Polk County, Florida, Sheriff Grady Judd as he described the Florida obscenity statute that officials used to charge Phillip Greaves with distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in harmful conduct.
The self-published author was arrested in Pueblo, Colorado, on a Florida felony warrant after undercover detectives in Polk County purchased and received a copy of the book through the mail. He will have to be extradited to Florida to face charges.
Judd said the book was Greaves' last copy, which he autographed before sending out.
Greaves and his book, "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct," gained national attention earlier this year after Amazon.com defended selling the book on its website despite angry comments and threats of boycotts from thousands of users.

Nowhere do basic constitutional rights and a desire to squash those rights collide more forcefully than when dealing with pedophilia. Most people would be happy to send convicted pedophiles onto a deserted island, or summarily shoot them. Barring that, they want them banned from parks, prohibited from living within a mile of a school, and other restrictions.

And so, with this book, there is a basic tension: is a guide to breaking the law itself illegal? It would seem to me that the freedom of speech mandates that such guides are okay. And, I would think, teaching how to molest children is also protected speech, even if it is the most horrible thing one could possibly do.

This Florida law, then, isn't about freedom of speech: it's about distributing obscenity, which enjoys no First Amendment protections. I do not know what is in the book, so I cannot say if it is obscene. However, and even though this law is being used to prosecute a man who advocates pedophilia, this offends my sense of justice. He has not committed any criminal acts against children, nor is there any suggestion someone has used the book to commit a criminal act. No matter how noble the cause, this simply does not seem right to me.

Furthermore, this quote from the sheriff is rather chilling:

"The message is very clear: If you write a book, if you sell that book, if you transmit that book to anyone in our jurisdiction, then we will investigate you and arrest, because our goal is protect the children," the sheriff said.

Posted at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2010

Gold, I tells ya

Don't know what to get that special someone for Christmas? Do you have $3,000 lying around? Well then, why not go to the mall in Boca Raton, Florida, where somebody has installed a gold vending machine:

The Gold to Go machine is the first of its kind in the United States.
"I think of a vending machine like a Coke or say a candy bar maybe or gum, but gold? It's unbelievable," one shopper told WPBF 25 News.
Thomas Geissler, inventor of the Gold to Go machine, said that, unlike chocolate or flowers that come out of a vending machine, gold will last for the next 5,000 years. He said the machines are also convenient for more serious investors looking to bypass the hassle of buying gold at pawn shops and on the Internet.

Now, fine - I suppose if somebody wants to buy some gold, out of a vending machine would be fine. But then you have the problem of somebody hanging out by the machine, waiting for someone to buy a piece of gold, and then beating that person's ass and taking his gold.

Additionally, what kind of security do these machines have? If people are willing to rob machines to get a free can of pop, I can guarantee they'll want to hit the one that dispenses gold.

Do you think it drops the gold down like the snack machine? How terrible would it be if you bought a piece of gold, only for it to get stuck in the machine? I would think if you tried to rock the machine to dislodge the piece of gold, somebody is going to arrest you.

But, I'm sure this has all be thought out, right?

Posted at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2010

Snowmanicide

Hello again. Now this is wacky. Some college kids - ah, I was one of those once - at the University of Illinois built a snowman after a storm. But, not satisfied to let the snowman live an idyllic existence on a hill, they placed him in the middle of a road. Then they videotaped it, with unintended consequences:

A Champaign-Urbana bus driver has resigned after officials with the transit agency saw an online video of the driver running over a snowman built in the middle of a street.

The video is posted on YouTube. It shows the bus veering toward the snowman on the University of Illinois campus and running over it.

The video was posted after a snowstorm earlier this month and shows only one other vehicle on the street at the time. That car steered around the snowman moments before the bus hit it. It isn't clear who built the snowman or shot the video.

Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District spokeswoman Jan Kijowski told The (Champaign) News-Gazette that the driver resigned. She refused to identify the driver or discuss the resignation.

This happened a few weeks ago, and I am still not entirely certain why the bus driver had to resign over this. Yes, it was a rather immature act to kill the snowman, but snowmen (or anything) in the road are dangerous.

A few years ago, two star high school football players in Ohio thought it would be funny to put a fake deer at the crest of a hill. When the next mope to come over the hill saw the deer, he veered, crashed, and would up paralyzed.

So, really, I feel the bus driver did drivers who may not be as attentive a favor. Plus, seeing a snowman get blasted like that was pretty funny.

Posted at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

December 09, 2010

Mmm, soap

A few years ago, there was a faux documentary that came out. It was a what-if movie, depicting a presidential election in the South, after the Confederates had won the Civil War. It was packed with fake advertisements, for blatantly racist products. (Such as Darkie toothpaste.) At the conclusion of the movie, it was revealed the fake ads were for actual products that existed during the 1920's and 1930's.

So, I thought of that movie when I read this story, about a store in Indianapolis that is selling reproductions of vintage soap, including some with racist imagery:

Some people found more than an offensive odor in a soap for sale in a central Indiana store. They find the labeling, and the brand name, offensive in a different way.

Noblesville is dressed up for the holidays, but not everyone likes what's being sold. Inside Logan Village Mall, one of the vendors is selling novelty soaps from a bygone era depicting minstrel and other racial images which we've intentionally blurred.

"I don't think it's much of a joke," Joe Slash, Indianapolis Urban League.

"It's not okay and not something that people would take very lightly anywhere," he said.

Slash heard about the soap through an email asking the Civil Rights Commission to look into it.

After I stopped chuckling because I envisioned Slash from Guns n' Roses speaking, I was annoyed. Are products with unflattering caricatures of black people racist? Yes. Does the store owner have a right to sell them? Yes. Should he sell them? I don't think so.

To me, the annoying thing is that apparently these are reproductions of vintage products, not actual vintage products. I tend to chafe when people attempt to revise history to conform with current attitudes - what was okay in 1930 is not okay nowadays - and I don't think we should try to change the past. But, if it's a reproduction, what is the point? There is no value to it.

However, I also doubt the damage these things could cause - will some kid become racist because of a bar of soap? No. Is it a violation of someone's civil rights? I highly doubt that.

The owner of the store, unsurprisingly, doesn't see what the big deal is:

Attorneys Gary and Kim Dewester, who own the general store, have leased the space here for ten years. They sell much more than soap and Gary says they haven't had a single complaint.

"As far as I'm concerned, we're conducting a legal business and if these people are upset about it, they don't have to come in the store. Again, if it didn't sell, we wouldn't have it in the store," Dewester said.

He's right, of course. Though, my main question is, who is buying this stuff? Does buying one of these make you a racist? If anything, stuff like this will reinforce why racism is slowly dying away. I'd say it's a mark of progress that there is a controversy over this, rather than a simple chuckle.

Posted at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2010

Dancing with the idiots

SPL214519_001, originally uploaded by Inspireduksr.

What in the world is going on nowadays? I, like many of you probably did, scoffed when I heard Bristol Palin was going to be on Dancing With The Stars. I don't exactly watch the program, nor do I have much of an interest in it. I also happen to have a healthy dislike of Sarah Palin. However, I thought it was obvious why Bristol was on the show: she generates buzz. And then, as she woodenly danced her way through the program, she kept garnering enough votes to stay on the show.

When Bristol made it onto the finale, with a chance to win the prize - whatever it is, anyway - there was an outrage, because she clearly performed much worse than any of the other finalists. The American public was quick to react, flooding the FCC with complaints:

Many of the complainants, whose letters were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, were upset that, as one Oregonian put it, “the top scores were voted off yet Sarah Palin’s daughter remained on.”

One viewer from Pittsburgh alleged that the show’s voting system had been “fixed by extreme supporters of the Tea Party and Radical Right-Wing. I find that it has become a political platform for Sarah Palin to improve her image and ooze her political slime.” The aggrieved correspondent continued, “Bristol is not a star, what did she do, she had sex and got pregnant. Lets reward her…I made several call to ABC’s complaint line and I hope that their phone lines melt. It has become a political movement, with Tea Party websites instructing on how to vote for Bristol. Ridiculousness!”

So a large bloc of voters conspired to keep Bristol on the show. So the f what? This isn't exactly earth-shattering news, considering most reality show winners have some kind of support like this. In this case, it just so happens her supporters happen to be some of the most polarizing people in America - the Tea Partiers.

In the end, Bristol didn't have enough votes to defeat the all-powerful Jennifer Grey. But, I'm not exactly complaining about a Tea Party conspiracy. After all, are the teenage girls who continually vote all things Twilight for awards subverting America? Did the fools who made Taylor Hicks an American Idol destroy democracy? Of course not - and neither did the Tea Partiers who banded together to keep Bristol Palin on Dancing With The Stars.

Posted at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)