Let's square ourselves with a fact: the NFL is going to end. I mean, it's not like they're going to be playing games in 10 trillion years. There will be a Last NFL Game Ever. Will this be in 50 years? 500? 10,000? And how and why will it end?
Perhaps the NFL will end suddenly -- one week it's there, and the next, it isn't. Or perhaps the NFL will slowly evolve, further and further from what it is now, until one day we can no longer truthfully call it the NFL.
In either case, here are some possible scenarios I can think of, as well as some odds. This, as you might guess, is as much about America and the human race as it is about the NFL.
Year of final game in NFL history: 2100
The Global Catastrophic Risk Survey, conducted at Oxford University in 2008, estimated a 19 percent chance of human extinction by the year 2100 -- most likely by nanotech weapons, a world war, or an engineered pandemic. With such a large scope, and with so many unknowns, I find it difficult to place much confidence in this figure. We'll roll with it anyway.
For lack of better understanding, let's suppose this 20 percent likelihood of human extinction remains constant throughout the remainder of human history. I think we ought to agree that all other possibilities that would lead to the NFL's end -- societal changes, etc. -- grow more probable as more time passes:
The idea of the NFL ending in the year 2013 for any reason other than human extinction or the collapse of our civilization are very, very low. But at some point in the future, those other factors will have had enough time to develop so that they're more likely to bring about an end to the NFL. When will we reach that point? 2050? 2200? It's difficult to say.
Back in June, I put together a list of the 10 Least-threatening Pro Wrestlers Named 'Ricky'. That got me thinking about the most threatening wrestlers named Ricky, which eventually brought me around to noticing how many wrestlers were named 'Dick', and how weird that is.
Long story short, I did extensive research on wrestling Dicks (not recommended without safesearch, btw) and complied a list of the Dick-related wrestling names I thought were the most threatening. Or the most concerning. Or the most obviously intended to make you think about dicks. I can't really explain that any better, just read the post and check out these weird dudes.
Warning: The word "dick" is typed a lot.
Kevin Williamson, deputy managing editor of conservative magazine The National Review, has garnered a great deal of attention for his cover story for the latest National Review issue. In his article, titled "Like A Boss," Williamson argues that women should be flocking to presidential candidate Mitt Romney because of his wealth and consequent alpha male status. Williamson writes that Romney should embrace his "inner rich guy" to better connect with the aspirational American people.
Williamson has written a followup piece for Progressive Boink arguing that Romney should extend a similar strategy into other arenas. Here is that piece.
Mitt is phat. Zuh-zuh-zuh-what?? Yeah, you heard that right. Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, is the baddest dude on the block. He's buttah, baby. Don't believe me? Check out this lyric by hip-hop rapper Jay-Z:
I want money like Cosby -- who wouldn't?
It's this kind of talk that make me think
You probably ain't got no pudding.
Know who has money like [Bill] Cosby? The Mittster -- and how! And if you don't like it, well, you sound an awful lot like one of Jayz's no-pudding hardscrabblers. So you'd think every Afro-American from Birmingham to Brooklyn would be all over their homeboy Mitt. But they -- if you'll excuse the street parlance -- ain't, know what I'm saaaayin'? Why is that?
I'll tell you why. 'Cause The Man's got 'em brainwashed -- or should I say, brizzlewizzled, if ya catch my drift. Check it: the average net worth of a negro household in 2009? $5,677. The net worth of Chez Romney? $200 million. That means Mitt Romney is worth 35,230 black people. Each Afro-American in the U.S. of Air Force Ones (know what I'm saaaaaayin'?) should be behind Mitt Romney 35,230%, and yet they keep throwing their weight behind Barack Obama, who is only half-black. If you play the race card at the voting booth, are you gonna get down with the homie who is the equivalent of a small city's worth of your people, or one who's just a half-breed? I know what my answer would be, were I blessed with a touch more melanin.
Or, look at it another way, let's take a dive into some history. That's right, we're goin' old school -- all the way back to the school of really hard knocks: slavery. If we were rappin' about this jive 200 years ago and we were maxin' and relaxin' way down south, who do you think would be the big boss man? The elitist, overeducated mulatto, or the dude of the, er, Caucasian persuasion with the killer 'do and the piles and piles of fat, er, phat stacks? Need I say more?
In short, it's time for Mitt to get in touch with something, and I ain't talkin' his inner child. I'm talkin' his inner slaveowner. You know what most hip-hoppers take away from their favorite film, Scarface? You want respect, you gotta take it. Mitt's made some real inroads with the black community, jammin' with 'em on their level with jivetalk like, "Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?" But it's time for him to stop just bein' fresh and funky and start keepin' it real.
I'm talkin' about showing Afro-Americans of every stripe that he means business. Evolutionary science shows that appealing to slavery-based tactics could really pay off. Sayin' "Bling bling!" to a group of black folks? Well sure, Mitt's gonna jazz 'em up and get 'em on his side, but the effect only lasts until Barack Hussein Obama comes to town and grins. But if Mitt lets out his inner slavedriver and barks some orders to the blacks of America...Who let the dogs out? Try "get to steppin'," brotherman.
Mitt got off to a good start when he rapped at the NAACP last month about repealing health care reform. But he needs to do more. If he can turn this "thang" into a battle of George Washington (noted slaveowner) versus Uncle Tom, need I even tell you who the brothers and sisters of this funky, funky country are likely to vote for? You get the picture.
On that note: I'm gonna lay some more history on ya, home skillets. Think of some of our finest presidents. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler. Notice anything? They all owned slaves. Now think of some of our worst presidents. Harding, Pierce, Fillmore, Nixon (at least if you go by reputation, but that's a tale for another day). Not a slaveholder in the lot.
Just sayin'. So yeah, Mitt? We know you've got "boats in different area codes," if you don't mind the winking reference to a hip-hop anthem. But let's see ya, at least on this one point, act a little less Reagan and a little more Jefferson. Know what I'm saaaaayin'? Word up.
Channel 3
12:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.: Cartoons from the 1940s, commercial-free, on endless loop. You will watch them if you are a bored security guard, a hired goon, a teenager, or ... anyone else, actually. You might be a hardened forensics expert or a demi-god stranded on a mystical island. Doesn't matter. A cartoon character will step on a garden hoe or something and you will find this really funny.
Channel 5
6 p.m.: Local news. Studio set looks approximately 10-15 years out of date. On-scene reporters inexplicably attempt to conduct interviews while live on air. Interview subjects offer implausibly astute commentary. Each segment concludes with, "and now for the weather report." Weather report is never shown.
9 p.m.: Wheel of Fortune. In prime time. In the year 2012.
Channel 8
6 p.m.: Exact same local news as Channel 5 because there is only one local news broadcast in the entire city.
Public television
12:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.: Nature documentary. Specifically, a 45-second clip of a nature documentary, usually of a bird attracting a mate or of a male/female establishing dominance (whichever is a more appropriate ham-fisted analogy for your life situation at present). Don't worry, we'll loop it all day until it fits. We'll wait.
WNN
8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.: Anchor on 12-hour shift. There is only one anchor on the entire network. Too-large gaudy WNN logo takes up an entire quadrant of the screen. Said logo is just "WNN" in Arial Bold font in front of an animated spinning globe that they forgot to put any land on.
8:00 p.m.-12:00 a.m.: Helicopter shot that ruins your "I live in Anytown, USA!" construct by establishing that you are in Los Angeles just like everyone else in every other goddamn show ever.
Home Shopping Network
7:00:03 p.m.-7:00:06 p.m.: Actual clips from the real-life Home Shopping Network because they will seriously just give that shit away. Airs for the three seconds it will take you to channel surf from some other channel to this channel to to the news, where they are talking about you.
ESN
12:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.: The same college football game played over and over without any score graphics or anything else on the screen. Play-by-play man sounds exactly like the color commentator and exclaims "WHAT A PLAY!" after a four-yard rush up the middle. Volume decreases while you clench your fist and exclaim "dagnabbit" or some shit. Watch out. A guy is about to walk into the room and shoot you.
Hello, friends. If you're new here, this is what happens: you leave a comment telling us about the lunch you ate or are currently eating today. I will then respond by rating your lunch on a scale of 1 to 10 and telling you in honest terms what I think about it.
Please know that I am not out to shame anyone's lunching, nor am I out to hurt anyone's feelings. HOWEVER, if I find a lunch especially crappy, I will say so. Just remember that it is an indictment of your lunch, not your character.
Oh: and over at the mothership, my Animated Sports GIF Tournament has reached the finals. It's a close race so far. Please vote if you're so inclined.
Anyway: lunches. Yours. Tell me about them. I can't promise that I will be able to rate every lunch, but I will rate as many as time allows.
Hey, y'all. Yesterday I made my debut at VICE Magazine. You see, a New York Times article on Julian Assange included an allegation by a former roommate that he refused to flush the toilet. My story is about that. Hope you enjoy!
Republican Congressman Todd Akin, currently running for U.S. Senate in his home state of Missouri, has come under fire for saying in a televised interview that according to doctors, pregnancy from rape is "really rare,” adding, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Amid censure from presidential candidate Mitt Romney and calls from Akin's own party for him to resign, the congressman has chosen Progressive Boink as the media outlet to exclusively run his official statement on the situation.
After saying yesterday that women can't get pregnant from legitimate rape, I've done a lot of soul-searching. And I've come to the conclusion that we as a society need more comprehensive sex education. Of course, I don't mean we should deviate from abstinence-only sex education -- heavens no.
But in order to have a society that fully appreciates and understands how precious this God-given gift of life is, we need to do a better job of educating our youth, as well as our 65-year-old congressmen, about the very origins of life. I realize now that I was wrong to think that if a woman gets pregnant from being raped, it can only mean that she secretly wanted it, but my misapprehension was born of innocent ignorance. I truly believed that a woman's woomb (sp?) is filled with hundreds of homunculi that repel rape sperm. How wrong I was.
And so I propose a comprehensive overhaul of our sex education system, an overhaul that will prevent such wrongheaded statements from ever being uttered again. Our children need to understand things like the perils of the food dye Yellow #5, which top scientists say shrinks our nation's penises. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry in a lab coat will tell you that, and yet the nation remains woefully ignorant of this most basic of biological facts.
Indeed, our nation's knowledge of simple biology and anatomy is truly a sorry state of affairs. Why, I must have been nearing 40 years old when I finally realized that girls peed out of their butts. I laugh to think back to my ignorance, but I was merely a product of the anatomical education I was given. I'm not really sure what I thought before -- maybe that they had retractable wieners? I don't know. That stuff is pretty gross, so I guess I just never really thought about it.
And yes, I must admit that the introspection of the last 24 hours has shaken me to my core to the extent that I recognize that responsible sex education, though emphasizing abstinence above all, should at least address the matter of birth control. While I shudder to think of our nation's teens even being made aware of the phenomenon of premarital sex, I do realize that some married people may elect to use some form of birth control as a matter of family planning, and teens should know about their options before getting married. Simple, over-the-counter Coca-Cola, for instance, when used as a douche (not quite sure what that is, but a woman would likely know), is a failsafe form of contraception, or so I have heard from highly educated doctors and scientists.
The bottom line is that we need to do better by our children. They need to understand that, yes, you can get AIDS from a water fountain. Or by getting gleeked on at a pep rally. Mosquitoes can carry AIDS too. We as a society must be aware of these risks. We must better inform our youth about lesser known diseases like hepatitis, which, what is that?
Ultimately, the blowback from my gaffe has been humbling, but it has also been a teachable moment. Why, just yesterday, I believed that a simple "circle-circle-dot-dot" tracing pattern on the back of the hand can protect a woman from getting pregnant. I now see my naivete -- such a simplistic remedy protects her neither everywhere, nor for life.
And so, in conclusion, I would like to announce that I will be taking a hiatus from public life to better educate myself about biology so that I may approach the legislative process with regard to such issues from a more informed position. My first task will be to find out what a period is. Can boys get one? What's a tampon, and how is it connected to the common period? Only our nation's top scientific minds know, and I intend to enter high-level discussions with them to bring their knowledge to the masses. I expect to return to Congress in the fall with an official inquiry into whether or not Jamie Lee Curtis is really a hermaphrodite. Also, what is a hermaphrodite? I mean, I know what it is, but I just want to make sure my fellow congressmen know. Thank you, and I look forward to returning to the public eye in a few short months.
There are a pair of brothers who are major-league baseball players. Their names are Jayson Nix and Laynce Nix. "Laynce" is pronounced "Lance."
Someone had a pair of boys and named them "Jayson" and "Laynce." Maybe they worked at the "Unnecessary Y" factory. I don't know.
But it certainly sets the mind to wondering what other entries were on the Nix family baby names list before they settled on "Jayson" and "Laynce," doesn't it? Of course it does.
