This just in from Dover Motor Speedway and VISA to my email inbox:
Cup Race at Dover to be named the “Autism Speaks 400 presented by Visa”
Gosh, the Asburgers at this stadium are delicious. And with the choice, convenience, acceptance, and security of VISA I could make them happen!
vanmojo alerted me to something very special about this year’s Rose Parade. For those outside the US, the Rose Parade is a huge New Year’s Day event connected with the Rose Bowl college football game. Corporations make giant floats, high school bands march, and it goes on forever.
Because 2007 will be the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, George Lucas will be the grand marshal. And also because of this, the 501st Legion will be marching in the parade.
Having a lot of Star Wars stuff in the parade sounds cool. Maybe some of the actors from the original movie, or a bunch of wookies. But no. This will be a large gathering of the Imperial Stormtroopers marching by in review.
The 501st has a long and hilarious history of charity appearances, each of which is more like an Onion article than the others. And they’re just costumed nerds, I know.
So I guess it’s perfectly fine to have the brutal, oppressive cannon fodder minions of the dark Empire marching proudly in our parade. You know, the ones who kill and burn Luke’s family at the beginning of the original movie. And it’s totally cool also to have a group named after the Nazi murderers who slaughtered millions of innocents in a horrific war of aggression, carrying out the most notorious genocide in the history of mankind. In fact, it should be awesome!
No wait, it’s that other thing: shockingly ignorant and offensive!
Someone please tell me this is a long drawn-out prank by Mel Brooks. Please.
Edit:Lucas’ extensive ripoffs from The Triumph of the Will just aren’t helping here either. Pasadena is the new Nuremberg.
My own favorite charity, Oxfam, has a Katrina relief fund. They’re good at disaster relief but also good at long-term structural help with the economic and social problems that persist years after a catastrophe. If progressive politics give you the willies, you probably will prefer the Red Cross. If band-aid solutions and a refusal to address poverty and discrimination along with disaster make you grumpy, I suggest you give a few bucks to Oxfam America at this link.
Famine in Niger, war and famine in Sudan, famine and disease after the tsunami, predatory landlords, dirty drinking water, the abuse of women and children, yet more war everywhere, AIDS, hurricanes, the impossible life of the subsistence farmer, drought, endless cycles of poverty and corruption, malaria, and still more war.
What’s a person to do?
Give a few bucks to Oxfam if nothing else. 77% of their donations and 90% of their emergency fund donations go directly to operations. They help in emergencies and crises, and they fight the root causes of the world’s miseries too. They do it locally, with global reach.
For those outside the U.S., the donation link is this one.
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