Or so I thought, at first, but not spam. Then I clicked the link, and realized it was indeed spam — clever spam, at that. If it had been left to a more off-the-wall post, I might’ve understood it, but Battlestar Galactica getting an emmy? Totally more important than the World Cup!
I mean.. it’s the World Cup, and all of you spiritual types are just writing things like what color your flowers are and what clouds in your coffee mean.
Take a break and take a bite out of something.
Forza!
Nice try.
(Oh, and what were they spamming? The Official Sixpence None the Richer website. Watch for spam from “Percy Faith”).
A little over a year ago, my coworker Robin got into an accident with a car while on his motorbike. Robin is in his early forties, a construction worker by trade who lives in Bel Air with his wife and two kids. Depending on his mood when you ask him why he works night at the Indy, he’ll respond that he’s either looking for some extra spending cash, or just plum sick and tired of his wife. He was driving down a country road at night just over the state line in Pennsylvannia when a car made a left-hand turn into his path. “I don’t know how they could’ve missed that big fuckin’ light on the front of his bike,” Gary mused later. Robin and his step-daughter (who was also on the bike) had to be airlifted to a nearby hospital. Despite the fact that he was wearing a helmet, when Robin returned to work, his hair was just starting to grow back, and the stitches along his skull made him look like a fat Frankenstein’s monster with a walrus mustache.
If Robin and his step-daughter hadn’t been wearing helmets, they’d most likely both be dead. I felt great sympathy for Robin when he was in this accident. I’ve never known Robin to be reckless, particularly when it involves endangering his family (or at least, members of his family who aren’t his wife). When he still drove motorcycles (he sold his shortly after this accident), he was often critical of automobile drivers and other motorcycle operators who drove without concern for other motorists. He would criticize the driver of a car for tailing him too closely the same as he would criticize someone on a motorbike following a car too closely. Robin obeyed the rules.
Apparently, it is not illegal in Pennsylvannia for a motorcycle operator to operate a motorcycle while helmetless. Technically, Ben Roethlisberger obeyed the rules, I suppose. I’m cool with legislatures overturning legislation designed to keep people alive. I’m all in favor of people having as many legal freedoms to increase their chances of death as possible. Let’s face it, this planet is overcrowded and stupid people need to be weeded out of the population. Ben Roethlisberger displayed an incredible amount of stupidity and arrogance and he’s lucky he’s not soon-to-be-wormfood. A dj on DC101 today said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I don’t get how someone who wears a helmet at work to prevent a head injury doesn’t get why he should wear a helmet when he’s riding a motorcycle.” (Oh, yeah, and also? About me biking with a helmet? As if there was a chance I wouldn’t be, those of you on the “let hair flow free” side of the argument can bite me, I ain’t going near a bike without a helmet, even if that law gets overturned.)
When I heard about his accident, I called Jennetic and teased her — guess whose favorite team won’t be winning any more Superbowls for a few years? Let’s face it, if the Steelers get to the Superbowl next year, they most likely will do it sans-Roethlisberger. Mean? You bet it’s fucking mean. But Roethlisberger is the one who put himself on a motorbike without head protection. If there’s one rule of driving I’ve learned on the mean streets of Maryland, and the murderous ones of Hunt Valley, it’s that drivers must always expect the unexpected. Sometimes, like today, the unexpected is a car unexpectedly making an unexpected left-hand turn across your right-of-way. If people expected to get into traffic accidents, they’d spend the day in bed. But when Ben Roethlisberger made the decision not to expect the unexpected, and to expose himself to unneccessary risk, he opened himself up to this level of mean-spirited criticism.
Ben Roethlisberger is rich. And stupid. He can afford the very best of medical care, and unless his injuries are more devestating than has been reported, I imagine he will play professional football again. I suspect his long-term legacy, however, won’t be of the youngest quarterback ever to lead a team to the Superbowl, but rather, as the punch-line for countless parents and spouses and loved ones, tightening the straps of a helmet under the chin of their children, lovers, siblings, and spouses, and reminding them gently, “Remember, sweety, we don’t want your face doing a Roethlisberger, now do we?”
In a recent article for the paper, contributor Joshua Ostroff discusses the series’ timely and topical nature and it’s aforementioned acceptance by the mainstream press, driving to the heart of why the series is Emmy material.
“Science fiction is rarely taken seriously,” Ostroff writes, “but that’s why it’s such an effective forum to explore topical issues through allegory.”
“Battlestar is about a clash of civilizations marked by terrorism, religious fundamentalism, suicide bombers, prisoner abuse and conflicts between civilian and military leaders,” he continues, “with magnificent performances by Oscar nominees Mary McDonnell (as President Laura Roslin) and Edward James Olmos (as Admiral Adama), as well as standout newcomer James Callis as the treacherous scientist/politician Gaius Baltar. It also delves into the paranoia over ’sleeper cells’ with certain Cylons — most impressively Canada’s Next Top Model host Tricia Helfer — appearing human.”
The whole article, here.
