Tag: social media

CNN done fucked up

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was a kid, I was always under the impression that the news was just the news; reporting on facts, with no bias or leanings.  Maybe a little bit of personality from the anchors, and on snow days, waiting for the weather people, otherwise, waiting until the last 5-7 minutes of the show for sports, so I can see which team was the latest to fall to the Chicago Bulls or what Cal Ripken, Jr’s consecutive game streak was at.  But that the FOX5 10 o’clock news was just news, the same as all other news outlets, and really nothing more.

I don’t think it was until the 2000 Presidential election did I realize that news outlets were far more capable of things other than just, the news.  Regardless of what one feels about FOX News, there’s no denying their involvement in the 2000 election, about how they declared a victor a little too precariously early and their overwhelming support for the Republican party.

This experience opened my eyes that news sources were not as neutral and unbiased as I had grown up thinking they were, and that there were most definitely rosters of various sources taking difference sides and positions in political spectrum.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that I lean left when it comes to most facets of life, and I like to believe I’m a pretty liberal thinker, open-minded to lots of logical things.  That being said, I used to often read the Huffington Post, because I appreciated their want to broadcast positive and uplifting stories, especially in a media-driven world hell-bent on reporting all the stories of violence, hatred, gunfire and war; if it bleeds, it leads, and there’s really only so much of it I can tolerate on a daily basis without feeling like I’m losing my humanity.

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Not a day goes by

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m still subscribed to my former home’s community on NextDoor.  Partially, because it slipped through the cracks and I neglected to address it after I had moved out, but also in part because it’s turned into this inadvertent source of amusement, fascination and a constant reminder of how glad I am to not live in the community anymore. 

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the shit out of my old house.  The house itself was great, and if it were remotely possible to uproot homes, and plop them down onto other places like Sim City, I totally would.  It’s just that it just happened to exist in a community that went in completely the wrong direction from where I had hoped it would.

Needless to say, based on shit I read on NextDoor on nearly a daily basis, the neighborhood has progressively been getting worse since I moved out.  And after every single I read about disgruntled residents of my old community, and all the neighboring communities dealing with some unfortunate issues on too often of a basis, all I can do is shake my head and take a huge sigh of relief.

Like, the first few weeks of life after the move, I was admittedly in a state of unease at the general change in life.  But as the transition eased, and the NextDoor notifications continued to trickle in, with stories of break-ins, shared security cam recordings of suspicious activity, and oh yeah a shooting incident, all melancholy feelings were gone and completely replaced with pure, unadulterated relief.

Residents airing out their grievances, passively-aggressively shaming behaviors they don’t agree with, and my favorite, the rant featured above, are daily occurrences on NextDoor now, and it’s like a trainwreck that I can enjoy even more, now that I’m but a mere bystander, and not a fellow resident.

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As if there were any reason to like Clayton Kershaw more

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I like Clayton Kershaw.  Dare I’d say, I’m a fan of Clayton Kershaw. He holds a little bit of history for me as a baseball fan; in 2008, when I really embarked on going gung-ho about visiting ballparks, and my friend and I hit up Southern California to hit up the Dodgers, Angels and Padres, the first park on the trip was Dodger Stadium. 

We had little idea of what to really expect, since neither of us were Dodgers or Cardinals fans.  We knew we’d see Albert Pujols, and I knew that I wasn’t going to see the Dodgers iteration of Andruw Jones, because he was already out on the disabled list.  We didn’t even know who was starting for either team, so on my Samsung A920 flip phone, I looked up to see Todd Wellemeyer for the Cards, versus some guy we’d never heard of named Clayton Kershaw.  Who?

Another cursory glance showed this Kershaw kid from the minor leagues who had like a 9.7 strikeouts-per-nine rate (which is extremely good) who was making his Major League debut.  Pretty cool, we thought, getting to see some hotshot prospect’s debut.

And he didn’t disappoint, either, as this Clayton Kershaw guy went six innings and struck out seven.  He didn’t get a decision, but the Dodgers went onto win the game in extra innings.  But we knew we had just seen the start of potentially a really good pitcher’s career.

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When a movie is treated like more than a movie

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really planning on going out and seeing Wonder Woman.  Not because I’m a sexist pig that refuses to support a film with a strong leading woman, but because I’m just not really that interested.  One, it’s a DC Comics film, and I know there’s a fallacy of predicting the future based on the past, but if the last few stinkers were any indication, it’s probably not going to be that great.  And two, the monumental amount of attention and press that this film has received, regardless of it was actually about the film or not, has put this movie on a plateau of expectations that I just don’t think can realistically be reached.

Had Wonder Woman just been released like any other comic book movie, I might’ve had more interest in seeing it.  I mean, this variant of Wonder Woman was introduced in such an epic manner, giving a modicum of life and interest to the steamer known as Batman v. Superman, that it really shouldn’t have been too difficult to expect that a stand-alone Wonder Woman should be just fine.

Now I know that as a man, it’s not really my place to speak on behalf of women, but I still have a lot of opinions on how the buildup and arrival of this movie has basically taken on a life greater than the film itself, and I think that it’s kind of unfair to the film and those who worked on it, that it’s being treated as anything other than a feature film that people will pay money to hope to be entertained by, and little else.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Gal Gadot is awesome.  If anything at all, I feel like I’ve been a fan of hers longer than most sudden Wonder Woman fans are, because I’ve enjoyed her throughout the later Fast & Furious films, where she plays Gisele, who isn’t just eye candy, but another strong female protagonist not defined by her role in the lives of men.  I know she served in the Israeli army, which explains why she’s so rock hard and convincingly tough, because she actually is, and nobody needs to give me an elaborate dossier for me to know that I appreciate her.

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When inspiration hits like a baseball to the nuts

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

No, seriously: Tim Tebow accidentally hits a fan in the balls with an errant throw that only Tim Tebow could be capable of making

All through the day, I couldn’t really find anything I wanted to write about.  Perusing through usual local and national outlets, looking for anything that seemed interesting to write about, scanning through sports sites and pop-culture sites to see if anything sparked any inspiration, no dice.  As much as I hate to do so, it looked like it would be a day in which I wouldn’t have something to write about, as the goings in my life aren’t particularly fascinating currently and there’s little there to write about either.

And then a story about Tim Tebow accidentally nailing a guy in the nuts with a bad throw shows up, I make the not bad face and now I’ve got something to write about.  The internet giveth.

Honestly, the story itself is nothing home to write about, despite the layers of irony there is about Tim Tebow making a bad throw, despite it being in baseball and not football.  To nobody’s surprise, Tebow personally dissuaded the situation, by checking in on the guy whose nuts he rang, signed some stuff, probably said some prayers and bowed their heads, and everyone went home all smiles and happy.  Story over.  But that’s what Tim Tebow does with people, personally, engages them, is friendly to them, and everyone walks away better for the encounter.

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Apparently the law is kind of a suggestion

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve heard of these bike/ATV swarms that have been seen around Atlanta, and I’m really thankful that I’ve never come across them before.  I’m pretty sure I’d lose my shit if I knew that I was missing several green light cycles at an intersection and be stuck waiting for a swarm of like 200 guys on dirt bikes and ATVs to passing like a bunch of unwanted locusts.

But yeah, these group(s) exist, and it seems like Sundays seem to be the days in which they tend to go joyriding throughout the city, occasionally clogging up roads and disregarding the fact that other people on the roads actually exist and might actually have things they need to go and places to get to in a timely manner.  As I said, I’m lucky to have avoided ever seeing them, much less get stuck in traffic on account of their illegal and selfish behavior, but with that being said, I’m pretty much destined to get stuck in traffic because of them sooner rather than later.

I came across this story about how the City of Atlanta is pondering whether or not they should crack down on them, which seems like a pretty obvious answer, but the fact is that the city doesn’t really know what course of action to take, be it impounding, arresting, destroying or all of the above, not to mention the cost of manpower and resources necessary to enact such a decision.

But the fascinating thing about the article is the accounts of those who are a part of the “club,” and how they (partially anonymously) try to justify their behavior, and how they try to spin in it a manner that what they’re doing is positive for the urban and black community, because when they’re riding, they’re not robbing or killing.

Wonderful justification.

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Fuck, politics

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve made no secret that I don’t particularly care about writing about politics.  But it’s gotten to a point where I can’t go anywhere, turn to any channel, open up a browser or look at Facebook without there being mention of politics.  I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to seek out the news and or look at social media, because I just know that all people are going to be reporting on or talking about is what’s going on in the political scene, and it’s going to again bring that surreal feeling that this is truly reality, and will be for the unforeseeable future.

At the time I’m writing this, I’m back in Virginia, visiting my parents, on what is admittedly not a leisure trip in the least.  That being said, I really could use some distractions from what’s going on in my life and my family, and hope that others out there are doing more positive things in theirs.  But nope, people are using social media to vent about their disdain towards all of the seemingly asinine thing that are happening at such a breakneck pace, and I’m asking myself if the headlines that I’m being exposed to are actually real.

But then I turn on a television or walk past a screen showing the news, and the same types of headlines are being broadcast to larger audiences outside of my Facebook feeds.  Healthcare being repealed.  Women’s rights to be seemingly reduced.  Christians to receive priority about all other foreigners seeking entry to America.  A fucking wall to divide the United States from Mexico.

Seriously, how are these headlines factual in the year two thousand and seventeen?

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