Apart from a pressing need for an amendment to its ‘beautiful one day, perfect the next’ self-styled motto, Queensland needs to go buy itself a state-wide lotto ticket, because it has, for the most part, narrowly avoided being completely scuttled by TC Yasi. Yasi, or the Banana Crop Murderer as I like to call her, is one of the manliest sounding cyclone names we have come across in a long time. Which isn’t difficult when you are comparing it to Larry or Tracy.
I know the people who name natural disasters are just trying their best, and are probably more concerned with the meteorological side of weather things that blow up a fierce gale, but who the heck thought Larry, Katrina, Bianca and Anthony were appropriate names for these monsters created out of mother nature's fury?
I suppose the really important point to remember is that celebrities don’t get the opportunity to name them. Or else we would have ‘Hurricane Pomegranate’ by Gwyneth Paltrow, 'Tornado Bluebelle Sweet Nectarin' by Bob Geldof, and ‘Tropical Cyclone Princess Plush Pillow’ by Michael Jackson.
Apart from the obvious similarities in personality traits and disposition, natural disasters resemble children in other ways too; that is, someone has to name them and someone has to pay for the damage they inflict on society and the environment. Hmm, who has to pay for natural disasters in Australia? Oh wait, that’s us taxpayers. Which we are more than happy to do. But just when you thought those bucks would be covered through your annual taxes...
Our fearless and rather stupid Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has whipped up a whole tornado of bullshit by deciding that Australians need to fork out for a ‘flood levy’, to pay for the wet and wild ride that devastated Queensland a few weeks ago.
Our Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, in opposing the PM, decided to fight the levy, and called for donations to set this in motion. Yes, the former is in charge of running the country and the latter is supposed to be holding the other to account, but that's no fun when there is a cyclone to exploit and much natural disaster politicking to oversee. As usual, I had the lowest of expectations and I'm still disappointed.
Maybe there is another solution. I have noticed that big whopper companies love to show their philanthropic streak when times are tough for Aussies. So what if we allow these companies to sponsor natural disasters (eg. Tropical Cyclone McDonald's Angus Burger), and the trade off is that they pick up the dry-cleaning bill?
Then we wouldn’t have to pay the stupid levy. It’s a two-pronged effect – they raise awareness of their company whilst looking like they care about the public and the environment. In my defence, I haven’t thought this idea through at all. But that excuse seems good enough for our PM and Peter Garrett and the other hillbillies who are supposedly governing the country, so it's good enough for me.
Also in my defence, I haven’t been elected by the people to stop the country running into bankruptcy, and it’s also not my responsibility to prevent a situation where the electorate are needing to take on second jobs to pay for natural disasters, which we rather ignorantly assume are covered by our normal taxes.
Showing posts with label Actors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Actors. Show all posts
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Monday, 31 January 2011
Young gun no more, Mr Sheen
What does the average 45-year-old male do on a Thursday night? Watch a bit of telly? Play a bit of sport? Pop down to the gym? Hell no. Real men go on a 36-hour drug and alcohol bender with a plethora of skanky porn star strippers and end up in a hospital emergency department. Just another day in the life of an average joe, aka Charlie Sheen. Mr Sheen has headed off to rebab again, to try and clean, wax and polish up his act.
Charlie Sheen is the star of CBS’ hit comedy Two and a Half Men, which premiered in 2003, and has been in the Top 10 of U.S. television programs ever since. Despite the fact that it is a cheesy American sitcom, I very much like Men, with its misogynistic comedy and double entendres. Charlie plays Charlie Harper, a self-gratifying jingle writer, who lives in a Malibu beach house with his freeloading brother Alan, and Alan’s son, Jake. Charlie’s character is exactly like Charlie in real life, except Charlie in real life is just a bit pathetic.
I bet you didn’t know that Mr Sheen, the actor, has quite a bit in common with Mr Sheen the cleaning product. It’s true. They both sweep clean surfaces containing white puffy stuff, and they both spend time trying to clean up their act, only having to go redo the whole process when they mess up their house/life again. Clean and polish surfaces as you snort with Mr. Sheen, indeed. But the cleaning brand, Mr. Sheen, wants to distance itself from its namesake, as it notes on its Wikipedia entry:
“Mr Sheen is a brand of cleaning materials (chiefly floor and furniture polish) to be used after visits from Charlie Sheen.”
While cleaning brands are well-known for their disinfectious humour, I don’t know if that entry was entirely necessary. But I can certainly understand if they want to differentiate their product from the cheaper, trashier brand; in the event we got the two confused.
Charlie Sheen has been a little loopy for years. I’m not an actual psychologist, but then neither is Dr Phil. But I do possess the psychologist’s bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychological Disorders, and I know how to use it, so let’s do a little diagnosing. I’ve never met Mr Sheen, and I haven’t done a differential diagnosis, but I’m gonna go with drug-induced psychosis, based loosely on the fact that he has a nasty little habit of snorting alot of cocaine on a pretty regular basis. You don’t need to be a psychologist to know this idiotic behaviour does not bode well for your psychological health (See: Britney Spears and the hair-shaving brouhaha).
To be diagnosed with a ‘Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder’ you must meet certain criteria, one of which is prominent hallucinations and delusions. Hmm, that sounds an awful lot like our Charlie. Let’s look at the evidence. How about this gem from Charlie Sheen commenting on the September 11 attacks:
"There was a feeling, it just didn't look any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life.….but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition'?"
Yes Charlie. It probably looked a little unorthodox to you because commercial jetliners flown by pilots who are not terrorists do not tend to fly intentionally into scyscrapers. I have no doubt that Charlie is well-regarded at AA meetings for his Homeland Security credentials and construction industry expertise, but this sort of analysis doesn't really wash on Planet Sane. And this from the same interview:
"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75 percent of their targets: that feels like a conspiracy theory."
Even Osama bin Laden would think Sheen's conspiracy theory was whacked. Disregarding the fact that al-Qaeda couldn’t wait to tell us that they were responsible for the attacks, a flushing toilet is going to look like a conspiracy theory to someone who has been snorting cocaine for most of their life.
Charlie Sheen is the star of CBS’ hit comedy Two and a Half Men, which premiered in 2003, and has been in the Top 10 of U.S. television programs ever since. Despite the fact that it is a cheesy American sitcom, I very much like Men, with its misogynistic comedy and double entendres. Charlie plays Charlie Harper, a self-gratifying jingle writer, who lives in a Malibu beach house with his freeloading brother Alan, and Alan’s son, Jake. Charlie’s character is exactly like Charlie in real life, except Charlie in real life is just a bit pathetic.
I bet you didn’t know that Mr Sheen, the actor, has quite a bit in common with Mr Sheen the cleaning product. It’s true. They both sweep clean surfaces containing white puffy stuff, and they both spend time trying to clean up their act, only having to go redo the whole process when they mess up their house/life again. Clean and polish surfaces as you snort with Mr. Sheen, indeed. But the cleaning brand, Mr. Sheen, wants to distance itself from its namesake, as it notes on its Wikipedia entry:
“Mr Sheen is a brand of cleaning materials (chiefly floor and furniture polish) to be used after visits from Charlie Sheen.”
While cleaning brands are well-known for their disinfectious humour, I don’t know if that entry was entirely necessary. But I can certainly understand if they want to differentiate their product from the cheaper, trashier brand; in the event we got the two confused.
Charlie Sheen has been a little loopy for years. I’m not an actual psychologist, but then neither is Dr Phil. But I do possess the psychologist’s bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychological Disorders, and I know how to use it, so let’s do a little diagnosing. I’ve never met Mr Sheen, and I haven’t done a differential diagnosis, but I’m gonna go with drug-induced psychosis, based loosely on the fact that he has a nasty little habit of snorting alot of cocaine on a pretty regular basis. You don’t need to be a psychologist to know this idiotic behaviour does not bode well for your psychological health (See: Britney Spears and the hair-shaving brouhaha).
To be diagnosed with a ‘Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder’ you must meet certain criteria, one of which is prominent hallucinations and delusions. Hmm, that sounds an awful lot like our Charlie. Let’s look at the evidence. How about this gem from Charlie Sheen commenting on the September 11 attacks:
"There was a feeling, it just didn't look any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life.….but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition'?"
Yes Charlie. It probably looked a little unorthodox to you because commercial jetliners flown by pilots who are not terrorists do not tend to fly intentionally into scyscrapers. I have no doubt that Charlie is well-regarded at AA meetings for his Homeland Security credentials and construction industry expertise, but this sort of analysis doesn't really wash on Planet Sane. And this from the same interview:
"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75 percent of their targets: that feels like a conspiracy theory."
Even Osama bin Laden would think Sheen's conspiracy theory was whacked. Disregarding the fact that al-Qaeda couldn’t wait to tell us that they were responsible for the attacks, a flushing toilet is going to look like a conspiracy theory to someone who has been snorting cocaine for most of their life.
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