The Quality Under Pressure Podcast

I started a new podcast and it's been great fun.
Please check it out if you have time.

The Super Bowl: A Cacophony for the Deaf

That is an image of Mercedes-Benz’s marketing campaign involving Che Guevara. That is not from a The Onion article — it was a real thing which you can read more about HERE. More on this later.

I have been a fan of sports since the fourth grade. I was first introduced to the National Basketball Association (N.B.A) by someone at church which acted as my gateway to baseball which lead me to football. I love playing and following sports, but the Super Bowl is easily the most exaggerated event on the planet. It’s less about football and more about spectacle. I’ve seriously been to “football parties,” although I try to avoid these now, where the people attending do everything but watch the football game. There are moments at these parties when I get excited about a splash play and literally everyone else will look up from their phones and ask me, “What happened?” At a “football party.” Where people gather to watch football.

Super Bowl 52 happened to be a really entertaining game. It was a well played, relatively penalty free, back and forth game that came down to the end. However, it was still overhyped. And to make things worse, the commercials were really atrocious. Take for example, this BUDWEISER COMMERCIAL. Now, I am not knocking their effort to help people — that is a wonderful thing. What I am knocking is how they spent north of 5 million dollars to pat themselves on the back for helping people when they could have used those 5 million dollars to actually help people. The only thing valuable to emerge from this commercial is that Budweiser has finally admitted that their beer is water.

Then take this well thought out DODGE RAM COMMERCIAL. And by well thought out I mean mind numbingly stupid. Who thought using content from a Dr. Martin Luther King Junior speech to sell a horrible truck was a good idea? If it wasn’t the person involved in the Che Guevara Mercedes-Benz campaign, here’s what needs to happen — the person behind the MLK commercial and the person behind the Che Guevara idea need to sit in a cold, dark, isolated room together and slap each other in the face until something semi-intelligent materializes.

Yes, these commercials are heinous and the Super Bowl is a joke, but what bothers me most is that it works. Common folk will irresponsibly spend a silly amount of money on the Super Bowl only to serve the wealthy. If these commercials didn’t cause people to go out and buy these stupid products, these companies wouldn’t spend 5 million dollars for a 30 second spot. Plain and simple, it works. The Super Bowl is a cacophony wasted on the deaf. It is such a wasted teachable moment and that is why it stings. If the deaf could hear, they would know that what looks like a beautiful symphony is in fact a cacophony that is so loud that we are all going deaf. 

There, however, was one good commercial — check out this GROUPON COMMERCIAL and watch a rich white dude get a football kicked into his nuts. 

John Oliver + Edward Snowden Interview

Finally got around to watching this. I am so glad people are getting excited about Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

•I hope when we are all dead and gone, and some future civilization tries to piece together what kind of species we were, that they will find the clip of msnbc cutting away from a congresswoman to cover Justin Bieber. I also hope they have the context of Justin Bieber before they do. I foresee, at that point, them picking up all their gear and saying, "Let's get the fuck out of here! These idiots clearly deserved to die!"

•I think Oliver might've been harder on Snowden than most journalist. If journalists need a distancing tool like comedy to be tough, then all our journalists should be comedians.

•How sobering it must've been for Snowden to see that people only wanted to engage in a conversation about the NSA and surveillance when it came to dick pics. And how aware of Oliver to understand that we are all idiots.

Disgusting New Animal Cruelty Video

I don't really got bothered by extreme video content, but I can never make it through an animal cruelty video. I have seen some pretty bizarre things without flinching, but animal cruelty videos send the worst emotions shooting through me.

Students Ask Obama About Education In America

I've had some amazing teachers in my life, and I've even tried teaching for a bit. It's an insane job, but incredibly rewarding and you feel good because you feel like you are making in impact on society and lives. I have no doubt that education is the great equalizer.
"Society has just gotta make an investment." He's right, but I'm afraid it won't. So, is this something we drag people along with, knowing it's the right path? Or, do we turn away from education because society isn't ready to prioritize it correctly?

Inequality For All - A Must Watch Documentary

An amazing documentary! A must watch for all. One of the most meaningful and important ones I have seen in a long time. I have had it on my list for a while and I finally got around to watching it.
I'm sure my Republican friends wanted to go on a shooting rampage after watching it. It pretty much demolishes the Republican economic outlook (This myth of "Trickle Down Economics"). The evidence is simple and difficult to argue against. I haven't studied economics since high school, and I am handicapped when it comes to that topic. However, even with my minimal knowledge, I like to think I have constructed a mildly reasonable outlook. My point is, if someone as stupid as myself can grasp these concepts, any idiot should be able to understand how this works.
The only disappointing part about the documentary is that it only looks at how to make capitalism a better system and bypasses a larger view of the system itself. What if the system at its best is still not up to par?? We could strengthen the middle class and make things more efficient and better, but that doesn't change that capitalism is a system based off of constant consumption. Why do you need a new iPhone every year when the one you are using now works perfectly fine? What are we paying in social and environmental costs to keep this flawed system afloat? Those issues aside, it is a great look at the economic issues we face within a specific scope.

Sam Harris & Cenk Uygur Discuss Religion

This was a lengthy, but very fun conversation to watch. I shared the video on my Facebook page, and this is my text that went along with my share:
That's what Sam Harris gets for trying to deal with and sort things out in the nuance. People want to paint with a larger brush. It's quicker, it's easier, and you get the bigger picture faster. It's not his fault he is misunderstood, it is our fault that we can't keep up with him. He is absolute behemoth of a philosopher and a genius. 
I really, really admire Cenk, and I think he made some good points. I think I even agreed with him over Sam Harris on maybe 1 or 2, but it got very annoying when it seemed like he tried to play devil's advocate just the play devil's advocate. 
That ending Sam Harris dropped was amazing. Easy to understand, but certainly a concept that only a wise mind could craft (Don't let your hindsight bias fool you). How we treat thought crimes is such a touchy subject, but his example of what we did to Bin Laden was spot on.

Debate: Does Science Refute God?

This was a lively debate that I had never seen before. 
The Christians (D'Souza + Hutchinson) didn't say anything that shifted the core of my stance, but I found myself nodding yes to a couple of their points. Especially when they discussed morality. I'm glad that the Christians didn't fight the notion that Christian morals are good morals because they are not. However, my nihilistic side did agree with the Christians that we do not know why we decided kicking a dog is wrong (I am glad that we did, but dogs are amazing creatures). Morals don't intrinsically exist in the cosmos. We constructed them so that we wouldn't have to live in fear every waking and resting moment of our lives.



This is pretty cool format for debates. It's quicker and I'm glad the speakers can step on each other from time to time and address each other like they are in the same room (Because, well, they are). I prefer it over formats where someone gets 5 minutes to address an opponent as if they were in another room. It really forces a debater to to clarify and support their stance.