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| Hey guys, why don’t we all shut up about immigration, at least for a little while. I know it’s touchy, but there are more important things to worry about these days. So why can’t we leave it alone and let people live their lives? Because, like a stripper with a Ph.D., it’s more complicated than it seems. It’s also boring. Luckily, I have a shockingly simple proposition: Let’s just forget about immigration and move on. That’d show those idiots in Arizona what’s up, and it’s been a long time since anybody told Arizona what’s up. | Since I know we’ll never give up on this crap as I’ve suggested, I also have a backup plan. It’s crazy, it’s drastic, and it’s a last-ditch effort, but here it is: If you don’t like it here, move. Remember how you’re from America so you have the freedom to live anywhere you want? It’s a good idea if you think about it. Just move to another country and let my immigrant friends and me have this one. And maybe once you’ve become the new guy in a foreign country, you’ll realize that it’s not easy, even when you’ve got ID. | |||
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Author Archive
LESS IMMIGRATION. MORE EMIGRATION.
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
LESS CITY. MORE COUNTRY.
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| Brace yourselves, folks. This token redneck has decided to decry your fancy city-livin’ with total disregard for the truth. Naturally, that’s not entirely true. There are many benefits to living in a big city, including culture, entertainment, industry and the classiness of major league sports. But the drawbacks sure are starting to pile up, aren’t they? Hell, I bet if you asked a hundred city-dwellers to name five good things about their city, they’d just hit you in the face with their iPad and run away in assumed fear of being mugged. It’s too bad their city has made them so paranoid. They might have enjoyed that talk. | Ahh, clean air and fresh cut grass. Everybody knows that our olfactory senses are the strongest links to specific memories and like a typical hick, “country air” is seared into my brain forever. It’s an odd mix of no-pollution, grass, and oddly enough, cow manure, and it is the smell of my youth. Don’t get it twisted – I didn’t grow up on a farm or anything. Just in a small, “agriculturally inclined” town right in the middle of the U.S.’s beautifully monotonous Heartland. We were just a short drive from the city, but we might as well have been raised in a time warp. Damn, I miss the 1980s | |||
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LESS NURTURE. MORE NATURE.
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| America faces a terrifying epidemic. It’s a problem that’s weakening an entire generation and turning the everyday parent into an easy target for criticism. No, no. Not that Project Runway game for the Wii. I’m actually getting all up in the grill of the group commonly referred to as “Helicopter parents.” You probably think you don’t know one. These are the over-parenting crazies you see at the mall who strap their kids into helmets, harnesses, elbow pads and sometimes even a leash. And they’re likely going to kill us all. | On Tuesday the very disease-free Chairman of the Bored eloquently proposed that getting your kids outside for some playtime is a good thing for their development, and I couldn’t agree more. But this is a little… farther outside, you could say. I’m talking about kids that grow up outside, like me and every other person I know did. There’s something to be said for a kid who can hit a baseball, throw a football, and put the chain back on his bike in time to make it home by curfew. Kids still do those things without digital interaction, right? | |||
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LESS CYBER WAR. MORE COMPUTERS 101.
Friday, April 9th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| Ok, so there’s good news and there’s bad news. On the bright side, as you may have noticed, the U.S. has some of the most advanced technology on Earth. Unfortunately, however, we’re naturally the country who is most reliant on advanced technology. That means we’re ridiculously vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and it sure sounds like a situation badder than kung fu Hell. A motivated nerd could basically shut America down electronically, were he to develop the tools, and align with a set of like-minded, radical friends.
Remember when Russian hackers punched Georgia’s digital nuts in 2008, as part of that little slap fight of a war they had. It wasn’t on a huge scale, but it was definitely noticed by the U.S. intelligence community. Having a President who knows that computers are more than just “them little YouTube boxes” probably helped. |
Sad but true: A lot of Americans can’t even turn on a computer. Sure, that might sound stupid to you, a physically attractive, intelligent blog follower. But the numbers never lie, unless you’re a banker or something. Computer literacy is rapidly becoming one of the most important skills one can possess in order to contribute positively to our society. It’s right up there with driving and throwing a perfect spiral. The problem is so pervasive that it’s spawned a new term, “Digital Divide,” to describe the gap between the people with computers and the skills to use them and the people without.
At first we thought Digital Divide was just Brooklyn’s best new electro-folk trio, but it turns out this concept has long been applied to intellect and financial status. This is a little different. This time… (dramatically removes sunglasses) it’s about national security. |
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LESS EDUCATION. MORE REDACTION.
Monday, March 29th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| After deftly and succinctly touching on religion last week, we figured it was high time we addressed education. If you ask us, education is key to being like, all smart and stuff. It’s true; look it up if you can even read this. That’s why our collective feathers got so ruffled when we read a story about the “different” history that Texas is trying to invent with its new public school textbooks. It seems as though they only want to teach what they like, or believe, or find righteous. Whatever they want to call it, we call it just plain wrong. | No, no, this piece has nothing to do with awful war movies from Brian De Palma. We’re talking about the combining of separate stories and turning them into one cohesive statement. Here’s an example: Say we edited the Bible into one big story and punched it up a bit with some action of our own; it would be The Holy Redaction. As fun as that could be, the threat of things being lost in translation looms large. Surely “pay attention to the details” has its own PowerPoint in the freshman orientation at Redactor State University, right? That’s day one stuff. | |||
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LESS NEGATIVITY. MORE COMEDY.
Thursday, March 11th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| Friends, we’re living in some negative times. Economics, earthquakes and hurricanes dominate the news; the news dominates our lives. We get it on our TVs, our computers, and on little devices that we never leave home without (god forbid we were to miss out on something). We’re all plugged in, unless you’re stuck in some hellish wasteland sans bandwidth. Sorry, Iowa. But technology isn’t all great. As a people, the constant deluge of tragedies and bad news will – and may already be starting to – wear us down mentally and emotionally.
The recent onslaught of disasters and otherwise tragic events is worrisome, for sure. But are things really getting worse at an alarming pace, or are we just rapidly increasing our global awareness? The answer is probably somewhere in between, but when we collectively experience something tragic, it can have wide-reaching effects. What do we mean by that? Read on, folks. Read on. |
Laughter. It’s one of the most simple human pleasures. A good, hearty laugh will push any negativity out of your mind, if only for a few seconds. There’s a reason that some trailblazing comedic genius decided to “put the fun in funeral”. Call it an innate sense of irony, but there’s something in most of us that can cause a giggle even when our conscious mind knows it’s the wrong time. You know, like during a Eulogy, when your parents were disciplining you, or even when your boss is scolding you for being 5 min. late.
That’s not to say there’s always humor in tragedy or trouble, but with the right set of eyes and ears, laughter can glean a little blue sky from a dark storm. Laughter brings us together, and can be universally appreciated, regardless of language. It’s special that way. The reasons for and benefits of comedy are all around you, if you look hard enough. Or maybe you don’t need to look very hard at all. Here’s why comedy rocks: |
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LESS CRAZY. MORE HORNY.
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| We like women. No, we mean we really like women. Behind only Tempurpedic memory foam and pudding skins, they’re pretty much our favorite “things.” We generally enjoy conversations with women (the smart ones, anyway), and for the most part they’re pretty fun to be around. Sure, maybe our view is skewed by the fact that we tend to hang out with slutty girls who like to drink, smoke, and watch us play NHL ’95 on Sega Genesis, but we pretty much assume all women are just as cool. | Whatever happened to the care-free escapades of yesteryear? Don’t most men miss the horny women of the 1960’s-90’s. For one thing, the widespread availability of porn has changed the landscape. Gone is the time when a lady would eagerly strip down and let you record her singing Billie Jean in your basement. There’s too much fear over the “consequences” of that sort of reckless behavior. Oh, how we long for the days when women satisfied our (and occasionally their) urges, without regard for the aftermath. | |||
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LESS HIGH-FIVES. MORE TICKLES.
Friday, February 12th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| Ok, dude. We get it. You’re really “into” the game we’re watching at this bar. That’s cool, we are too. But observe some freakin’ decorum in public, Meathead. Nice hat, by the way. You do realize you’re wearing a Philadelphia 76′ers hat while you’re rooting against the Philadelphia Eagles in this game, right? Were you raised in a barn or something? You just can’t yell things in public like “Yeah, eat sh*t McNabb!” while wearing a 76′ers hat. But we’re getting off-point here. | Unlike the gruff forcefulness of the high-five, there’s something magical and childlike about being tickled. It’s hard to explain, but you know what we mean. Which got us to thinking. Why, exactly, isn’t the tickle more commonplace? Sure, it’s standard fare in elementary schools and Russian bath houses, but why should such an innocent activity be for kids and gays only? Really, unless you’re jammin’ at some club named “The CockPit,” tickling outta be more mainstream. | |||
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