Looks like somebody failed history class. And probably skipped Black History Month.

[apocalypsos]

From the protests in San Francisco:



****

In other news, I think I've found a way to get me to work harder on the novel. It works like this.

1. Finish a chapter.
2. Add 1500 words to my Bigbang.
3. Repeat.

Also, I'm watching an A&E special on Teena Brandon and I kinda hate people right now.

Comments

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Join you in head-desking, I do, I do...

I was darkly amused that Jon Stewart reminded us last night that Hitler started the modern Olympic torch rally tradition, and he jokingly chided France "Way to shit on Hitler's legacy!"

I hope someone told that protester about Jesse Owens. An honest embarrassment to the Nazis: a black man winning...

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I guess nobody told them throughout the entire rally, which is both sad and funny. Mostly sad.

(I would have had a field day running up and telling them all about Jesse Owens kicking Aryan superiority.)

[wal-lace.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether to point and laugh or sob. But at least I have a vaguely appropriate icon.

... I visited Berlin just after the fall of the Wall. The empty Olympic stadium remains one of the weirdest places I have ever been. It's the sort of thing the word surreal was invented for.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

That sign is both hilarious and incredibly sad.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

This HAS to be faked.

Doesn't it?

Please?

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately no, but this is. Thank you smart and smartassed protestors from 2003!

[kanedax.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic.

[txteva.livejournal.com]

that makes me want to protest with that sign!!

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

It takes a special kind of dumbass to make a sign like that. I makes you wonder whether their family tree has ever branched.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

And you know when they thought that up they were like, "Oooh, burn!"

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

The great thing is that they're managing to break Godwin's Law, saying something completely moronic, AND shitting on what Jesse Owens would have thought of the protests all at the same time.

[marag.livejournal.com]

I like the sign because it a) invokes Godwin's Law and b) is, of course, stoooopid. It's kind of a double whammy of dumb. But it needs a grammatical error, like a random apostrophe, to hit the trifecta.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the sudden capitalization of the last half of the question count for anything? Maybe, like, half a point?

[marag.livejournal.com]

Ms. Grammatica will consider this.

::sips chamomile tea and dabs at forehead with lavender-scented handkerchief::

Upon consideration, Ms. Grammatica believes that the random capitalization *does* qualify. We have a trifecta.

Ms. Grammatica will now retire to her room and collapse in depression.

[ansuzbound.livejournal.com]

I don't know you from Adam, but I lust after your icon with the fiery, burning desire of a million elderly librarian suns.

[marag.livejournal.com]

::laughs:: It was made for me years ago, after I wrote a series of lectures for a writing list under the "guise" of the inimitable Ms. Grammatica.

Ms. Grammatica is often forced to take to her bed in exhaustion with her lavender-scented handkerchiefs. And always refers to herself in the third person :D

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

Is that for real?

Dayum.

[smwance.livejournal.com]

Wow...

[greyduck.livejournal.com]

Here because Chris linked ya... and, wow. Just... wow. Head-to-desk contact here.

add to the list of classes skipped:

[minaloush.livejournal.com]

film class apparently. yeeeeesh. i was thinking about that last night, though, and the fact that no one is talking about that and i wondered if it was because that's sort of the the rule in arguments that once you mention Nazi Germany, it's all over in terms of rational argument or if it's just because no one sees a connection.

[florahart]

Wow. I *did* all but fail history (because the history teachers at my high school? made of fail in both qualitative and quantitative ways) and even if I didn't remember off the top of my head (which I almost certainly would have), I would have like, consulted wikipedia before going anywhere with that sign.

*headdesk*

[florahart]

Also, where the hell did that image come from?

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Aqui. deadro was the photographer.

[florahart]

Thanks. I didn't not believe it wasn't a manip so much as I wanted to pass it on to folks who would be all MANIP, so, y'know, source.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

There is so much fail in the world that could be negated with a simple trip to Wikipedia. It makes you wonder if there is an active conspiracy against people with I.Q.

[elbiesee.livejournal.com]

That sign, stupid as it is, gave me a well needed laugh, so thank you for sharing it.

Back to my regularly scheduled stalking...

[siberian-skys.livejournal.com]

I wish I found that sign shocking, but considering the state of education in this country, I'm really not surprised.

I've seen that Teena Brandon documentary. It broke my heart.

[doortje.livejournal.com]

I wish that the rampant stupid of that sign even surprised me. Its just depressing.

[insidian.livejournal.com]

Not only failed history, but didn't see or read Carl Sagan's "Contact." If I recall correctly, broadcasts from the 1936 Olympics are the first images to reach Teh Aliens.

Or, perhaps this is me being overly optimistic, this is a sarcastic sign? "Would we have allowed Nazi Germany to- OH THAT'S RIGHT WE DID WE'RE MORONS AND IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN"

Yeeeeah, I'm gonna go with that being overly optimistic.

However, interesting point about the Berlin 1936 Olympics is that it seems to have been a do-over for the 1916 Olympics, which had been planned for Berlin but then, WHOOPS WORLD WAR. Which happened again, when the Olympics in 1940 and 1944 were postponed for the World War, and finally made it back to Italy in '56, Japan and Austria in '64, and West Germany in '72. See? If we're having an Olympics, we CAN'T be fascists anymore!

[fyrdrakken]

I am sadly unsurprised by that sign. Then again, I live in the Bible Belt, where book-larnin' is considered suspicious at best, so I'm faced with this kind of ignorance on a semi-regular basis.

Also I didn't see the documentary but did see the movie Boys Don't Cry, so I at least recalled the basic biography of Teena Brandon.

And your method of self-motivation to write reminds me of how I keep my knitting progress up -- have multiple projects on the needles simultaneously, with some I'm especially focused on progressing on and others I'm really eager to work on, and set myself daily (or weekendly) quotas on a few. And then alternate, putting in my eight rows on the afghan panel before picking up the sock for half a pattern repeat, and making myself put in a stint of work on this, that, and the other project before I allow myself to pick up this other one on Saturday night...

[lily-liedtome.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've seen that documentary, but the Brandon Teena thing makes me cry, and hate people. Every time I see something like that, I hate people more. There is a FOX news clip that is circulating right now about the 'male preganancy,' thing that is just the most disgusting thing I have ever seen - they refuse to call him by his chosen pronoun, instead choosing to use the fabulous and dehumanising 'it.' Awesome, guys. This is why 1 in 10 transpeople are brutally murdered - way to go for encouraging that. *hates*

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

See, they almost have a point there, since holding the Olympics in Germany hardly turned them into fluffy bunnies of the international stage and there's no hint doing it in China will have that effect on them. But the key word in that sentence is almost. Oy.

-blue

[artemis2050.livejournal.com]

Fail. EPIC fail. Godwin's Law epic fail.

Oy vey iz mir.

[cavalaxis]

Wow, the stupid, it burns.

[cavalaxis]

Also, your layout is made of win.

[trinity_clare]

First reaction: Godwin's!

Second reaction: ...Wait.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*stares*

Oh, ahahhahahha. I had to do a double-take.

Brilliant.

And oh: welcome to the madness. Soap boys r us. *g*

[faith21.livejournal.com]

*snorfle*

I read the sign, and had a puzzled moment of "but we DID." Right? lol

It's bad when idiots make you second guess your history professors. And I took a class called the History of Sports.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

the History of Sports.

*gapes*

OMG I WANT THAT CLASS.

[faith21.livejournal.com]

It was pretty cool, although I think I slacked a little taking the last semester of my senior year.
I did get all the trivia questions correct. And the films were good.

[angry-geologist.livejournal.com]

History fail.

[elf]

I would weep for the future of my country, but I think we're kinda beyond that point and I should just weep for the future of my species.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Why is there a gay man bending over on a sign in the background?