Category Archives: Economy

Fame Day: Co-Ops

In our weekly discussion yesterday, Evan made mention of “‘It’s Not Easy Being Red’ Gordon,” a reference to the political blog and comic strip I used to write. For anyone who might not be aware by now, yours truly is a Marxist.

And yeah, here’s the obligatory “no, Stalin was to Communism what the Spanish Inquisition was to Christianity; no, we’re about dismantling the state, not expanding it, and no, we don’t like Obama either so please stop saying he’s one of us.”

While I try to keep my admittedly extreme Anarcho-Trotskyist views out of the blog, there’s really no denying that they affect my value system, and while most of the time this means I’m frothing at the mouth at whatever new abomination consumerism spits out, every once in a great while, it means something really catches my attention and admiration.

For this Fame Day, that thing is the co-op. Continue reading

It’s Harder To Give Than To [insert any other verb]

Ugh, Dane Cook . . . 

So earlier this week Gordon showed me this video:


How much I actually enjoy Dane Cook [I typically do not]  aside, he really hits on something with this bit. People do get sad when they see these commercials, so they either change the channel as quickly as they can or they watch through the whole thing because “it’s the least they can do” before trying to bury the bad feelings in whatever regularly scheduled programming was taking a commercial break.

He makes the point that people don’t give because they’re being asked too nicely, which probably has some validity to it. I think two main points that people will give in their defence are: 1) I can’t afford it, and 2) it’s too much of a hassle, it’s too much effort. Continue reading

Shame Day: Sequels For Sequels’ Sake

It should be no mystery to us that a lot of movies aren’t made to be good. As a broad generalization, many of the films put out are intended to simply make money. To really hammer this point home I like to point towards Cars 2.

Cars 2 was a Pixar milestone, and the first of their films to beat its predecessor, Cars, in a particular category. It was the movie that garnered a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, an abysmal score significantly lower than the first movie’s 74%.

As someone who’s seen every film the studio has ever done, I was disgusted by the fact that they would create a sequel to what was ultimately my least favourite of the bunch, but then I understood-

This really says it all. I’m not really going to explain this any further.

Money money money. $10 billion dollars of Cars toys, bed sheets, clothing, toothbrushes, the list goes on. So clearly sometimes ratings can be down, if profits are up. But what about when this isn’t the case? Continue reading

Evan and Gordon Talk: Homosexuality in Television

GORDON: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Evan and Gordon Talk after our long absence; try to contain your tears of joy.

CONTAIN THEM!

Now our subject for tonight is something Evan and I have had multiple conversation on over the past year or so: homosexuality in television.

EVAN: If you’ve been keeping up with these weekly installments for the past year or so, it should be no mystery what our stance is on homosexuality in general. I like to think that our opinion of what Orson Scott Card chooses to do with his money make this apparent. Continue reading

Evan and Gordon Talk: “Super-Independence”

GORDON: Well Comrades, welcome to the Culture War Reporter’s off-grid, self-sustaining commune. Pour yourself some Kool-Aid and make yourself comfortable as Evan and I debate the merits of the movement.

EVAN: While we ended our last segment stating that we were going to discuss the state of the church, starting off tonight we realized a few things.

a) We can’t for the life of us find this phantom comment by Joseph suggesting such a topic [though I swear I read it].

b) We already talked about one of his topics [naps and such] and therefore should give someone else a chance.

c) Hannah has put forth a good handful of them, one of her most recent being the following:

What do you guys think about the new(?) trend back towards super-independence, by which I mean, growing your own food, creating your own textiles, etc (and taking pictures of it to put on your fancy blog….). Is this back to the earth movement a reflection of culture change or just another hippie permutation?

Continue reading