How do you screw up Godzilla?
Political content and some rude language to boot, so I suppose I'll go ahead and cut it so people who want to wave off can. Nothing major, just an observation.
So, the other day the totally awesome website FiveThirtyEight made a post about the presidential race in Western Pennsylvania, and it led off...well, it led off with a Jack Kerouac quote. After that, however, there was this tale:
So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."
ardaniel and I pondered this in the car that night. We came to a few conclusions; it was funny, and it was a horrible thing to say, but in this one case the language could be overlooked for the fact that they were getting the right idea even while expressing it poorly, so it was worth a pass and a laugh.
Mostly, after the giggles subsided, what was left was the overwhelming sense of...how? How does John McCain *lose* people like this? How badly do you have to screw up your case if you lose the kind of person who would innocently say, "We're votin' for the nigger!"? (The subject of this post is a reference to my classical example of this type of problem: The 1998 American version of Godzilla. The concept is *so* basic and *so* well tread for years and years, as long as you hit a few key points, you *will* make a decent Godzilla movie. To instead make a peice of crap is otherwise willful and criminal ignorance.)
That was the thought experiment. Today I got a much closer-to-home example.
I have two sides to my family. My immediate family is awesome, and where I got just about all of my inherant awesome from. Most of my mother's side extended family also fall under this category, to varying degrees.
My father's side, however, stemming from his sister, is another story. $Baptist, to a fault, with all the sterotypical baggage that comes along with that. My aunt, at my brother's wedding, intoned that it takes three years of *training* to become a Lutheran. Anything that isn't something they believe in is dark and scary and to be put down. Cousins range from one that's tolerable, one that's just kinda 'out there', and one that might as well be her mother.
Today, my mother informed me that my aunt had informed her, via instant message, that their *entire family* would be voting for Senator Obama.
How do you, John McCain, *screw up Godzilla?* The mind reels.
Bonus points: most of them live in Florida. :D
So, the other day the totally awesome website FiveThirtyEight made a post about the presidential race in Western Pennsylvania, and it led off...well, it led off with a Jack Kerouac quote. After that, however, there was this tale:
So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."
ardaniel and I pondered this in the car that night. We came to a few conclusions; it was funny, and it was a horrible thing to say, but in this one case the language could be overlooked for the fact that they were getting the right idea even while expressing it poorly, so it was worth a pass and a laugh.
Mostly, after the giggles subsided, what was left was the overwhelming sense of...how? How does John McCain *lose* people like this? How badly do you have to screw up your case if you lose the kind of person who would innocently say, "We're votin' for the nigger!"? (The subject of this post is a reference to my classical example of this type of problem: The 1998 American version of Godzilla. The concept is *so* basic and *so* well tread for years and years, as long as you hit a few key points, you *will* make a decent Godzilla movie. To instead make a peice of crap is otherwise willful and criminal ignorance.)
That was the thought experiment. Today I got a much closer-to-home example.
I have two sides to my family. My immediate family is awesome, and where I got just about all of my inherant awesome from. Most of my mother's side extended family also fall under this category, to varying degrees.
My father's side, however, stemming from his sister, is another story. $Baptist, to a fault, with all the sterotypical baggage that comes along with that. My aunt, at my brother's wedding, intoned that it takes three years of *training* to become a Lutheran. Anything that isn't something they believe in is dark and scary and to be put down. Cousins range from one that's tolerable, one that's just kinda 'out there', and one that might as well be her mother.
Today, my mother informed me that my aunt had informed her, via instant message, that their *entire family* would be voting for Senator Obama.
How do you, John McCain, *screw up Godzilla?* The mind reels.
Bonus points: most of them live in Florida. :D