King of The Jungle

The ad reads:  "The Amazon is the largest rain forest and is among the last places on earth where the jaguar, one of the most powerful cats can be found."  

I'm sorry, did you say "powerful"?

.

 

The ad continues:  "Unfortunately, the rain forest is being destroyed by development and logging."  

Sorry Jaguar, you lose.

Social Animal

When they say 80% of communication is non-verbal, are they saying that that proportion of the time, we might as well just be gorillas making ape-sounds?  It would almost be more honest if we reverted to grunting noises, since, as they say, most interactions are just social positioning, and the substance of whats being said is pretty much meaningless; its just a pretext to convey the status of the relationship.

If you work in an office, you'll hear happy-sounding dullards going through the motions of making a joke; they always laugh, whether or not the joke itself was funny.  They should cut out the bullshit, eliminate the words, and just make monkey noises.

If someone resents you, no matter what you say, they'll reflexively disagree with you, as though gagging up a rebuttal at the sound of your voice; you could say the most indisputably true thing in the world and they'll find some way to argue with it.  If you say "its raining out", they'll say "not in Indiana".  With many people, the only substantive information they convey is that they're gorillas with nothing meaningful to say.

I'm right.  Don't argue.  Just make monkey noises.

Sub-morons

The other day on the BS Report, Bill Simmons said that Subway's $5 Footlong jingle had a pavlovian effect on him;  this was odd because I'd always felt that, on his podcast, the ads for Subway had conditioned me to hate that restaurant.

They place an ad right after each episode; this is like if they played a Subway jingle for a baby every time they took its rattle away (in this simile, I am a baby).  The announcer for these ads is an obnoxious radio-douche who always makes the same joke;  hearing this shit about three times a week, every week for the past year, I've sincerely come to hate this guy.

Most ad campaigns associate the product with something great, Subway has associated themselves with an annoying chore that means something great has come to an end.  If some ad campaigns are like being with a sexy girl, this ad campaign is like wiping jizz off your stomach after masturbating (while being hectored by an obnoxious radio-douche). 

She could sell me AIDS, but only if they were her AIDS.

Gotta Pay The Bills, Vol. 2

We couldn't exactly foresee the backlash incurred as a result of our initial fund-raising initiative; just to reiterate: the opinions expressed on those bumper stickers do not represent the views or opinions of Trivial Pursuit: The Blog, they were merely offered, for sale, as a means to finance the website.  So while we don't feel like we should have to apologize, we will, if only to silence your whinging cries.  As an additional gesture of good faith, we propose the following, more female-friendly, business ideas as a means for funding the blog.

They can't all be a night to remember; the selective woman uses Selecta, the morning-after memory inhibitor.  Take Selecta, to turn regrettable into forgettable.  Selecta, because that one shouldn't count.

Alright, ladies, we all know the only reason you have female "friends" is so you can get together and talk shit about other women behind their backs.  Well, fuck those jealous bitches, who needs friends when you've got the Magic H8 Ball!  Just shake the Magic H8 Ball, then see what hilarious insult  comes up next:

• Yeah, that outfit's appropriate...in a whore house!
• OK, does she paint her make up on with a roller, or is it just like one big kabuki mask that she bought at a flea market.
• OK, maybe if I distract them with my boobs, they won't notice I'm ugly.
• OK, that shirt is really tight, but like, not tight enough to smooth out her rolls.
• She thinks she's all that but her boobs are all fat.
• That dress would've been really hip....three seasons ago!

For the final fund-raising idea, we're looking to fill an entry level position in a promising new business venture, and in keeping with the spirit of the moment, we'll give strong preference to female applicants.  With any fledgling enterprise, the key is to get the customer hooked early, and a great way to do so is by offering a free sample of your exciting new product.  This attention-grabbing technique is used everywhere from the grocery store to the rock spot; its time to bring the idea of "exciting and new" to the world's oldest profession.  "Blowjobs:  First 2 Minutes Are FREE!  (each additional minute $500)"

High on Yourself

When people quit smoking, they switch to Nicorette and carrot sticks.  When they quit heroin, they use methadone instead.  But sometimes it seems like the most common replacement drug is self-absorption; you have these recovering addicts on the TV and the radio, going on and on, with their drugs and their problems; it often seems like they're glad to have an excuse for all the attention.

If narcissism is the replacement-drug for addiction, whats the replacement-drug for narcissism?

Probably heroin.

 

He probably got that tattoo because he thinks of himself as the bright, blazing orange center of the universe.

No Homo

From Sunday's episode of Meet the Press:

David Gregory:  "What do you say, General?  Should gays and lesbians be allowed to serve openly in the military?" 

General David Patraeus:  "Well I'll provide that, again, uh, on uh Capitol Hill, if-if asked at that time uh."

In other words, if Capitol Hill don't ask, Patraeus don't tell.  To be fair, like most other soldiers, he's probably worried that if he comes out in support of gays, he might get called a fag.

 

Is there gonna be a badge for being heterosexual? Cuz I don't want any homo's hittin' on me, I wouldn't be flattered by the attention or anything...

Barack Blockin' Player Haters

Over the past few months, I've learned a lot about the filibuster; you know something's drastically wrong when you actually retain information about a subject this boring.  It's sort of like human anatomy: you can take the classes and do the reading, but you won't really remember what the temporomandibular joint is until your fucking jaw starts to hurt;  this is why old people are like medical encyclopedias, and why med students should stop using speed and instead find a way to induce hypochondria.

 

If you're lucky, you'll never find this interesting.

But the filibuster has become a very real problem; the Republicans have been abusing this stall tactic like Dean Smith abused the Four Corners Offense, running out the clock on Congress to preserve the status quo.   In the 1982 ACC Championship game against Virginia, the Tar Heels spread the floor and held the ball for most of the last 13 minutes of the game, this was good for the Heels since they were protecting a lead, but bad for basketball, as fans were bored to death; as a result the ACC instituted the shot clock the following year.  Pundits are now wondering why the Democrats don't institute a similar rule change, and save the government from the filibuster before people drop dead.

 

The teams scored a combined 13 points over the last 13 minutes; before the rule changes, this was an intelligent use of Michael Jordan. 

The filibuster is a joke of a stall tactic: a Senator goes up and pretends to give a speech, and in order to get him to stop, 60 out of 100 Senators have to tell him to shut the fuck up, otherwise, as long as he's talking, the Senate can't pass any legislation, and the stalling can go on for years.  The Republican threats to use this loophole have gone completely out of control, to the point where Democrats are contemplating something called the Nuclear Option.

 This is what it takes to shut them up.

The Nuclear Option isn't as radical as it sounds, if the Democrats can get 50 Senators (plus Joe Biden as a tiebreak) to declare the filibuster unconstitutional, the effective threshold for passage of a bill will drop from 60 to 50.  This would be great for the Democrats in the short term, since they have 59 votes right now; and arguably also in the long term, since the filibuster, by preventing any new law, preserves the conservative status quo over any progressive change.

When pundits are asked why the Democrats haven't gone nuclear yet, the typical answer is that the Democrats are pussies, and while this is accurate, its also incomplete; liberal ideology does tend to attract a specific type of person, and its worth delving into the details of these predispositions.

Democrats defend minority rights, even minorities other than themselves; Republicans support only their own rights, often at the expense of others.
For years, Democrats have defended, while Conservatives have attacked, the rights of racial, religious, and sexual minorities.  Many Conservatives like to say the white christian male is an endangered species, and while that isn't exactly the case, in the Senate today, the Conservative is definitely a minority; oddly, or perhaps predictably, the Democrats are overprotective of these white-male minorities' rights.  If the roles were reversed, and the Republicans had 59 votes, you'd bet they'd try to make the Democrats a permanent slave race.

Democrats believe in helping the less fortunate, Republicans don't care about the less fortunate, only about themselves and their families:
Democrats support programs like universal health care and welfare; Republicans find this naive, they believe the less fortunate will take advantage of the system.  Put in the position of being less fortunate, the Republican Senators are definitely exploiting the system, and Democratic naivite.


The Democrats believe in checks and balances; Republicans only believe in them when convenient:
When Bush was president, the GOP advanced the idea of the unitary executive, saying that the President should have almost total control over every decision made by the government.  Anytime Congress passed a law that Bush didn't like, he used the signing statement loophole to cross out the parts he disagreed with, circumventing the separation of powers.  Signing statements are meant to be used only when part of a law is unconstitutional;  Bush considered anything he didn't like to be an unconstitutional usurption of his presidential powers.  According to the NYTimes, he used "signing statements to challenge about 1,200 sections of bills over his eight years in office, about twice the number challenged by all previous presidents combined."  Given the same opportunity, Obama has used signing statements in a much more limited fashion, which is in keeping with a campaign promise, although he was predictably taken to task by Conservatives after issuing a few of them last year.

In 2005, in a GOP-controlled Senate, the Democrats threatened to filibuster some of Bush's judicial nominees; in response, the GOP threatened to eliminate the filibuster using the Nuclear Option, and the Democrats promptly caved.  Thus far, given the same opportunity, the Democrats have failed to issue similar Nuclear threats.

 

It's not the end of the world if all we're nuking is a legal loophole.

Its true that the Democratic character traits outlined above are pretty much just variations on a theme; the Democrats are indeed pussies, who's (perhaps naive) belief in the common good exposes them to exploitation by Republicans, and maybe that explains why they've thus far failed to strike down the filibuster.  But its also possible that the failure has been intentional, that its in the service of a fourth predisposition, that being that Democrats feel the need to support their actions with logic and evidence.  For a year, they've tried everything they could to pass health care, but due to the pigheadedness of the GOP and the intractability of the filibuster, America's been deprived of the reform it needs.  Obama's a constitutional law professor, the failures of the previous year have now provided him with the evidence, and a practical argument, for why the filibuster should be declared unconstitutional and eliminated for good.

Old Standbys

It's Sunday night, a time for rest, relaxation, and comforting ritual; what better occasion to trot out this venerable jazz standard:  "My god, the cast of 60 Minutes is old." 

In the year 2000, there was a movie about sending old people into space, not to get rid of them, but so they could actually accomplish a mission.  This movie was considered a comedy, there's something inherently funny and outlandish about old people being productive, but the cast of 60 Minutes, while laughably old, is no joke; somehow, these geriatrics consistently accomplish their mission by producing a good show.

 

Unlike Space Cowboys, 60 Minutes is actually worth watching.

Here's a look at the birth dates of the key players in the show's current lineup:

Scott Pelley - July 28, 1957  (age 52)

Steve Kroft - August 22, 1945  (age 64)

Lesley Stahl  - December 16, 1941 (age 68)

Bob Simon - May 29, 1941  (age 68)

Morley Safer - November 8, 1931 (age 78)

Andy Rooney  - January 14, 1919 (1919-01-14) (age 91)

Mike Wallace, "Correspondent Emeritus" - May 9, 1918 (1918-05-09) (age 91)

In 2006, the show lost Ed Bradley; usually the hip, edgy guy dies of a drug overdose, on 60 Minutes, it was leukemia at age 65.

Whenever people ask "how do old people manage to have sex with each other", the answer is always that "its all relative";  in the middle of an episode of 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl starts to look pretty good.  Then again, maybe its that she so often looks like she's listening intently; a guy can go years without seeing this expression in his day-to-day life. Its telling when you hear these stories about "high-class" prostitutes, where the girls will say that many of their clients just wanted to talk; even for these powerful men, the idea of someone actually caring to hear their thoughts remains a fantasy they have to pay for.

 If each episode of 60 Minutes was a level on a video game, the end-guy would be Andy Rooney; you enter his lair, he throws bombs, and you just try to stay out of the way.  In the world of 60 Minutes, he's earned this position not by being the biggest and baddest, but being the most crotchety.   To look at him, you'd think he'd feel secure in his station, yet he seems to feel the need to constantly reassert that he's the most ancient motherfucker in the room, dropping dates the way social-climbers drop names, saying things along the lines of "my desk is older than your mother, and I made it by hand on my 50th birthday."

Steadfast in his refusal to trim his eyebrows, he wears them like a badge of honor, the way a mixed martial artist sports a cauliflower ear.  

Andy doesn't always have the most original subject matter, but he's done over 1000 essays for the show, so its to be expected; to quote the man himself, "good ideas are overrated. It makes more difference how a writer handles an idea than what the idea was in the first place. The world is filled with people with good ideas and very short of people who can even rake a leaf. I'm tired of good ideas."

Check Yourself

On Thursday, a terrorist flew a plane into an IRS building, killing one person and causing millions of dollars of damage.  As you'd guess, he had a manifesto, and his message is that the Government is bleeding the American taxpayer dry; I wonder who's gonna end up footing the bill for this one.

For political messages, bombing buildings can be like yelling and screaming: more people will hear you, but fewer will want to listen.

In one way, its sort of like the PETA stunt from a few years back, when they protested the lobster-industry by buying lobsters then shipping them back to Maine, where they were released into the wild.  The Lobster-Industrial Complex didn't complain about the extra business.  

You always gotta make sure your methods don't undermine your message, otherwise people will realize you're insane; remember this guy?

I should definitely spell-check this post.

Ink Blots, Vol 1

Today there was a license plate that said:

 

(artist's rendering)

Depending on your outlook, this plate could be interpreted two ways:  it could mean you should "leave your life" by running away from your problems, or that you should "leave your life" by killing yourself.

Oblique Strategies, Vol. 1

There's probably an indie-rock band somewhere that used a Brian Eno-style Oblique Strategy, where they took a bunch of phone messages left by a whiny indie-rock guy, who was trying to get back together with his ex-gf, then transcribed the sounds and cadences of the guy's voice into parts for their guitars and keyboards.  The resulting arrangement would have provoked a deep empathetic response within the chests of their core fanbase, which might have elicited in the artists feelings of either amusement or disgust.

Why won't you return my calls...Why won't  you return my calls...

Role Reversal

I'd always been amazed by the blind-spots people can have about the words "n*gger" and "f*ggot"; people can't wrap their heads around why certain groups might be sensitive.  But for some reason, I was never able to transfer that understanding over to the words "b*tch" and "c*nt"; that might have been because, growing up, women just didn't seem like an oppressed group to me.

All through school, most of the teachers were women, and they seemed to be pretty bossy, constantly telling us what to do.  Then you have the much-documented hegemony of the sitcom matriarch; on pretty much every show in the 90s, the men were dumb slobs, while the women were smart, responsible, and in control.

   .

She's gonna choke him out.

Finally, there's the tyranny of the young hot female; up until their mid-20s, any halfway decent chick feels like she's got something on you, sometimes they seem to get off on making guys feel inferior. 

 

Its hard to view her as oppressed.

Now, as an adult, its obvious that that perspective was a little skewed, that women might actually have a valid reason to feel disempowered.  I'm not quite there yet, but if they'd spend a little more time on their knees, I might actually stop calling these bitches cunts.

The Worldwide Leader

The ESPN-brand sportsticker says: "Tiger Woods to apologize for his behavior."

This sets a good example for the kids:  you fuck around on your wife, you say you're sorry to the media.

Hopefully ESPN itself will set a good example with a similar courtesy: 

• Thank you Tiger, for giving us more ratings, as we exposed kids to the idea of a serial-philandering father.  
• Thank you Tiger, for giving us more ratings, as our dullard commentators condemned you for being a bad role model.  
• Thank you Tiger, for giving us more ratings, as we air your apology for being a bad role model.  
• We forgive you.

But as a member of the public, I'm still left to wonder, how do I explain to my (rhetorical) kids why I give a shit about any of this?

 

Is "the potential to be a good mugger" now a part of the alpha-male checklist?

Double Standard Is Consistent

There's been a bit of a feminist uproar over the coverage of Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn, some say the media's been showing a double standard by objectifying her.

 We're really getting a mixed message here.

The truth is, the double standard is the foundation of women's sports:  if she didn't have T, A, and a vagina, she wouldn't be in the Olympics; she'd be competing against men, who would annihilate her. Besides, women's sports wouldn't be viable if they didn't have a little sex appeal; look at all the lesbians who show up for WNBA games just to see big, sweaty tomboys rustle around in boxy, ill-fitting clothes.

Some say the WNBA should switch to more flattering uniforms, the truth may be, to the league's core fanbase, these uniforms are flattering.

It's like, Society, man...Vol. 25

Its taken me much of (what was supposed to have been) my adult life to realize the obvious:  you can gather all the evidence in the world, and present it with impeccable logic, but you still can't make them agree with you; its much easier to make them want to agree with you.  You don't convince people in order to get them on your side; you get people on your side in order to convince them.

Here's a corollary:  when you start telling people how fucked-up society is, they're probably going to laugh, so you better hope it's with, rather than at, you.

He writes epigrams in his spare time.

It's like, Society, man...Vol. 24

Its been intoned, by no less an authority than "Voice of God" Don LaFontaine, that in a world gone mad, only a lunatic is truly sane.  As a society, we're receptive to that message in the context of entertainment, but in practice, how readily do we apply it to the real world?

 

 In a world gone mad, where are the girls gone wild?

The DSM-IV defines a delusion as:

"A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture."

The DSM asserts that, if society believes it, its automatically not a delusion, even if there's "incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary".  Society is automatically sane, so if you call bullshit on society, you're a suspect for diagnosis as a delusional psychotic (pending evaluation of "proof or evidence", by delusional society).  It isn't a stretch to say that, according to the definitive manual of psychiatry, in a world gone mad, only the sane are truly lunatics.

Am I fucking nuts, or is that a little crazy?

Has psychiatry still learned nothing from Hollywood?

It's like, Society, man...Vol. 23

The predominant approach of the Republican party can be summed up with the following quote, written by journalist Ron Suskind after talking to an aide in the Bush White House:

"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community...That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."  - NYTimes Magazine (Oct 17 2004)

 

 Bush looks for the hole where they put the brains in.

 
This worldview can be found in many other places:

 Wall Street:  "It's not what its worth, it's what you can sell it for."

 Poseur Bosses:  "It's not who you are, it's how you present yourself."

Savvy Criminals:  "It's not what you did, it's what they can prove."

 

Ad Men:  It's not the product, it's the packaging

These successful assholes think that, when it comes to furthering yourself and your agenda, the truth is immaterial; what matters is getting people to buy into your bullshit.  You might have too much faith in humanity to believe that that's the way of the world, but if you really want to call yourself a member of the "reality-based community", you have to face the facts:  its hard to argue with results.

Top Slot

 There can be only one alpha male; Matthew McConaughey and Gerard Butler vie for the top slot (Alba) in this riveting romantic thriller. 

In an effort to impress Jessica Alba, these two assholes spend tens of thousands of dollars on personality accessories such as:

• European Style Tennis Shoes
• DVD Collections
• Books for Their Shelves
• Concert Experiences
• Vacation Resumes
• Restaurant Opinions
• Tools

They fight over everything, including which venues are most suitable for competition; these areas of disagreement include:

• Which profession has more status, how to define professional success, whether or not income is a relevant metric of success.
• Whether there are multiple types of intelligence, if so, which types of intelligence should carry more weight, whether hand-eye coordination is a type of intelligence.
• Which sports require more athleticism, how you define athleticism, whether or not hand-eye coordination is considered athleticism.
• Whether silly is a valid form of funny, whether its more important to be funny or clever, whether or not cleverness can be measured objectively.
• Whether or not its all relative, whether or not everything's subjective, whether or not everything's a gray area.

Ultimately, only one person can decide who ends up in the top slot; will Jessica choose Gerard or Matthew, or will she wind up with the mousy lesbian who works at the deli?

Gotta Pay The Bills

Its a known fact that Al Qaeda's been selling drugs to fund their operations; to them, the drugs are evil, but so are the people who buy them, so its ok as long as it aides their "righteous" cause.

Going forward, I'm working on finding ways to get this blog to pay for itself; it costs money to keep this thing going, and we want to keep spreading our message of enlightened thinking.  One of the ideas we've been kicking around is selling misogynist bumper stickers.  Now, just to be clear so no one gets offended: I'm like a terrorist, misogyny is a drug to me, and its all for a good cause.  

 

Going Racial

There was a good episode of WTF yesterday; Marc Maron condenses Black History Month into a single hour and "raps" with Afro-American comedians Dwayne Kennedy and W. Kamau Bell.  The brothers (not related) speak for all blacks and discuss white comedians use of the n-word on stage (including possible cryptic reference to David Cross?). Here's a little FAQ to prepare you for a frank discussion of race:

What do you get the self-entitled white person who has everything?  

A persecution complex.

How come we can't call them nigger but they get to call us honky?

Because getting called a honky is like being honored with a celebrity roast.

 

Danger Seeker.

Dance

  

Michael Jackson probably stole from these guys.

 
This TV show was talking about how the slaves invented capoiera after the masters banned them from practicing martial arts; apparently it disguises the fighting moves as dance.  Its surprising the masters let themselves get fooled, we don't even let our football players celebrate after a touchdown.

It's not that we hate to see them happy, its that we know they're somehow subverting our authority.

 

The one celebration we actually embrace is when they admit that they function as dogs.

The Kids Don't Stand a Chance

On the most recent episode of the BS Report, Bill Simmons interviews NBA Commissioner David Stern.  Stern says he's been trying for 30 years to get the Players' Union to negotiate shorter guaranteed player contracts.  He says he can't figure out why they won't accept a deal because the players as a group would receive the same amount of total money, it would just end up being disbursed more fairly.  Right now you've got old, fat, lazy players drawing $16 million salaries while they sit on the bench at the end of 6 year deals, that money would go to the hungry guys still in their primes.

The real reason the Union won't accept the deal is because the Union doesn't represent basketball players in general, it represents the specific group of players who are currently in the league.  The current players want the long contracts to protect them from the waves of rookies that come to take their jobs every year.  The Union is controlled by the current players, and they will vote to screw over those future rookies to protect their own self interests.

 The guys who are already in the club get to set the rules, the rules kick the asses of those who aren't yet in.

Another prime example of this phenomenon is the rookie salary scale.   Rookies are forced to sign 4-year contracts for preset amounts, and these amounts are typically far below market value.  For example, Lebron was making about $5.8 million a year in his fourth year; he finished 5th in MVP voting, and was easily worth the league maximum of $15 million plus, but he was still locked into that rookie contract.  Less money for the future rookies means more money for the current veterans.

A similar situation happened with the age minimum, the veterans wanted to keep the high school kids from entering the league and taking their jobs; the high school kids didn't have much say in the matter, they weren't yet in the Union.  People acted shocked that the Union caved on this issue, but it would have been more shocking if they hadn't screwed over their future constituents.

You can see a similar phenomenon in American politics; we don't do shit about global warming or the national debt;  58% of voters in the 2008 election were age 45 or older, a demographic that only comprises 38% of the US population, and a demographic that'll be dead before its time to pay the piper.  The people most effected by these problems are kids under 18 and those as yet unborn, unfortunately they don't get to vote.  Its just like the NBA, the current constituents are screwing over the future constituents to serve their own self interests.

Look at these smug, self-entitled jerks, living it up like there's no tomorrow.

Paper Trails

If there are aliens, they probably stopped showing up after one of them realized "oh shit, they're starting to write stuff down."

 

This is an article about a woman getting pregnant by an alien. 

  

White House spending on paper shredding under Cheney administration.

Mehhh, where the fuck did you get that document.

Safe Word!

I asked Mike Remiker how he felt about one specific post, he responded by saying something like:

"Jesus.  Someday, something bad's going to happen and we'll all be able to point to that post and say 'we should've seen it coming'".

It seemed like everyone was just gonna assume the post was a joke, but he was the one person who actually took it as a cry for help.  Maybe there should be like a cry-for-help safe word, just to avoid any confusion.  Starting right now, you should be concerned if you see the word "tambourine".

 

Just to be clear, this is a tambourine.

A Little Late to the Party..

Last night, the city of New Orleans celebrated the Saints' Super Bowl win with a parade; the media made a big deal out of the fact that they'd planned on having a parade even if the Saints lost, but that shouldn't have been all that surprising: this is a city that celebrates Lent by getting drunk.

 

The Saints are honored for debunking the pretense that Peyton Manning is a genius.

Courage of Your Convictions

These grandstanding, conservative, national security poseurs have been acting up in arms because Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the mastermind of 9-11) will be tried in civilian rather than military court; these GOP frauds claim to be concerned that the villain might somehow be acquitted of crimes he's eagerly confessed to.  Here's an idea, if he is acquitted, why don't you wait on the courthouse steps and kill him yourself?

 

This is the anti-My Space phenomenon: the cops only use the least-attractive photo.  This was the best t-shirt they could find?

For the past decade, society's been lining up to watch movies about heroes like Batman, Ironman, and Spiderman;  these movies are fantastical escapes, not because of stuff like the Batmobile or Spiderman's webs, but because if any of these guys actually had this shit, there's no way they'd waste it on the good of society.

 

"I probably could do something about it, but its not really my place."

 
If someone like Batman really exists, why the fuck didn't he kill OJ Simpson?  OJ was on the loose, golfing freely among society for almost fifteen years, and no one did anything about it, despite the fact that tens of millions of people claimed to be OUTRAGED!! at his acquittal because they claim to KNOW FOR A FACT HE'S GUILTY!!!
 

 

Really?  No takers?

Heroic vigilantes are few and far between; KSM might think of himself as one, but really he's just kissing Allah's ass to get into Heaven.  Then there are the gangsters serving out "street justice", but really they're not fighting other people's battles; they're fighting their own, and that's not justice, that's revenge.

These superhero vigilantes traditionally act alone; they're willing to risk their lives on behalf of society, but more importantly, they do so on the basis of independently formed moral judgments.  There are a lot of brave people (cops, soldiers, gangsters) willing to risk their lives, but their courage is steeled by the moral sanctioning of either the law, the military, religion, or an angry mob; they're courageous with their lives but not their morality.

Within the angry mob, you have a lot of grandstanding people acting outraged and passing moral judgment, but ultimately they want that judgment sanctioned each other and by the actions of an executioner other than themselves.  Very few people have the courage of their convictions to mete out a death sentence on their own authority.  Whether that statement's an endorsement of, or an observation about, vigilantism, you can feel free to make your own decisions.

SPOILER ALERT!!:  In Season Five of The Wire, they show Omar swallowing the green radiation, that was David Simon's way of saying that an independent moral compass is a "freakish" attribute in modern society.