Everything Wrong With Prager U's "The Progressive Income Tax: A Tale of Three Brothers," Part I

For those of you who don't know- in other words, you hit "Skip Ad" as soon as possible when you saw these ubiquitious valentines to Libertarianism pop up- Dennis Prager is a right-wing talk show host who, when not bashing intellectualism and sneering at the idea that a college education is of any actual value, pretends to be a university professor who knows how to use Prexi on YouTube.  When he isn't blathering nonsense into a microphone, he's blathering nonsense along with whizzing graphics and infantile cartoon characters using equally infantile straw man arguments against Socialism, Atheism, and...well, that's about it, actually.

These stupid chapters all fall under the banner of "Prager U," which is even less of a university than Trump University and even less of a learning opportunity than Prager is a teacher.  I guess this is Prager's "answer" to the "wasted money" represented by college- "see, I'm just a jackass radio yakker and I know more stuff than your elitist university professors, you whiny know-it-all millenials.  Check this out, my intern did the graphics!"

Anyway, I didn't want to spend this entire blog post explaining and bashing the concept of Prager U, which is nothing more than Dennis Prager's ego showing up again and again to interrupt my viewing.  I wanted to focus on this particular chapter, in which Prager condescendingly tries to "explain" to us why the concept of "class" is bad and wrong and that if we don't have money it's because we're just lazy and made bad choices like deciding not to work ourselves to death and actually raise our kids and find value in things other than money.

I realized about two minutes in that this was going to take some time, and I'd have to break it up into episodes to avoid this post being several pages long.  So I hope you don't mind that this looks more like a long-winded project than the usual "I hate this Commerical here's why" schtick.  My intention is to look at key points in Prager's little "you make choices and live with them you whiny schmucks" rant and give my own interpretation of what is going on.  When I'm done, I'll post the entire thing on successive days.   Ok, here we go with the opening:

Tom, Dick and Harry Class are triplets who were all raised in the same home with the same family- ok, we get it, Prager is going to show that they all had exactly the same advantages, so we can't blame or credit environment.  This is pounded into us early on; Prager is very concerned we are going to notice something "special" about one of the Class brothers right away.  Nope.  Same skills, Same IQ, "same opportunities."  They are basically clones following the same script.  Fine.

Each of the brothers got married and had two children.  They were all carpenters making $25 per hour.  And it's at this point that their lives begin to diverge, because they had "different priorities."

Ok, that's where I'll leave off for now.  Part II follows tomorrow.  Arent' we all curious to find what happens to the Class brothers when they stop being exactly the same person and start making choices?  I know I am!

She traded down. We get it, Taco Bell

So let's analyze this one to find what Taco Bell really thinks of it's demographic, shall we?

Cute girlfriend is out for a walk with her man-child new boyfriend, who is clearly a lot more into eating crap with both hands than being with her or taking care of himself.  They bump into her ex, who is a non-Taco Bell-eating, healthy fitness-oriented guy who, from his reaction to seeing a former girlfriend, has moved on and hasn't given her a second thought.

At this point, I assume that Ex Girlfriend wants very badly to show well to Ex Boyfriend, but since New Boyfriend is already Not Tall, Not Athletic and eating Taco Bell with both hands, the odds are pretty heavily stacked against her.  Still, if New Boyfriend can just manage to be coherent and sociable for a few seconds, this might not turn out too badly.

Instead, New Boyfriend inexplicably believes that Ex Boyfriend wants some kind of physical contact with him, and he's got his hands full of carbs and grease, so he gives him a chest bump.  This comes off as unbelievably stupid and embaressing to everyone involved, and has probably ended his relationship with New Girlfriend, though that's going to have to take place off screen, because Ex Girlfriend still needs to make the best of the situation until Ex Boyfriend is gone.

Ex Girlfriend links her arm with Soon to Be Latest Ex Boyfriend and rather defensively moves on- as I implied, she can't break up with this clueless slob on the spot, otherwise hunky Ex Boyfriend jogs away the victor of the moment.  She must pretend that they are still a couple for at least a few more seconds, or until Ex Boyfriend is out of earshot.

But please, tell me that inside of three minutes this girl- who can clearly do much better- has dumped her latest mistake's sorry ass right there in the park.  Please tell me she isn't this desperate for a guy to hook arms with just in case she runs into Jogger Ex.  Please tell me she isn't THAT sad.

Masterpass shows how much Joe Montana likes money

I guess I'm supposed to know who the woman is in this commercial too, but I don't and I'm perfectly ok if no one wants to enlighten me.  It's Kat something, I know that.  Don't care.

The point of this movie is that the target audience is composed of mouth-breathers who are likely to forget the product being sold unless it's hammered into their skulls repeatedly over the course of thirty seconds but who really like anything that involves using their phones.  I doubt that there's any sensible reason for Joe Montana, who hasn't thrown a football professionally in 23 years (yes, that makes me feel very old) and is therefore pretty much an unperson for that target audience, to be here.  But whatever- hey everybody look, here's an old guy who played in the NFL a quarter of a century ago but can still be triggered to throw fragile decorations across the room by repeating a word!  Funny, right?  Right?

Oh by the way, before all this BS with Montana and Kat Whoever, we see a young woman totally flummoxed at witnessing the customer in front of her use her phone to pay for something.  Holy crap Mastercard, I grew up with phones attached to the walls by cords and I get the concept of paying bills with them by flashing the screen over a card reader.  We're supposed to buy the idea that some Millenial is astonished by this sorcery?  Seriously?

And one more thing- would the woman using "Masterpass" really respond to "what is that?" with "Masterpass?"  Not "I'm using my phone to pay my bill?"  Are people now programmed to provide free advertising to strangers?  That's almost as dumb as the Doddering Old Money-Grubbing Quarterback with One Less Ring than Tom Brady making a fool of himself crap that follows.  Almost.

Amazon Prime's mastery of laziness, incompetence, cluelessness....and a bonus dig at the U.S. Postal "Service"

Or "one week in the life...."

Exactly one week ago, I ordered something on Amazon Prime.  It "arrived" on Tuesday....somewhere.  The delivery guy put it on a porch and took a picture of the box on the porch and sent it to me, which was great except I did not recognize the porch.  Which means that rather than bring the package to the residence of the person who actually ordered it the delivery guy, apparently tired of driving around with said package, decided to randomly drop it off at a random porch somewhere.  And then take a photo of it and send it to me- "look, here's that stuff you ordered.  Try to guess where I left it.  It's kind of a game!"

On Thursday I spent thirty minutes maneuvering through Amazon's maze of circular "orders" options until finally coming across a chat opportunity.  Within a few minutes the problem was resolved in the form of an apology and promise of a replacement for the lost item.  To make it more likely I actually received the item, I asked Amazon to send it to my place of work, where there's pretty much always someone to sign for it and which is not likely to be mistaken for a random porch somewhere.

Well, today I check my Amazon Orders page and find that the package has been "Delivered"--- to the school--- which is closed---- because it's SATURDAY.  Did the driver, finding a closed, empty building, just leave the package by the door and move on?  Don't know for sure- I haven't received a photograph.  I can't go to the school to check for my package, and I'm hoping that the "delivered" notice actually means "attempted delivery," but I guess I'll find out on Monday.

Meanwhile, a few minutes ago I got home from the store to find an "Unsuccessful Delivery" notice from the Post Office for ANOTHER order I made on Amazon this week.  This one was brought by the US Postal "Service," which has this bizarre habit of randomly deciding that certain packages must be signed for while others can be just left by the door.  Since I can't get to the Post Office during the times it's open I'm probably not going to be able to secure this package, either.

Isn't ordering stuff magical, kids?

This IS the 21st Century, right?

So this ad wasn't produced by Chrome?

If I missed something, please let me know what it was, because all I get from this ad is "Firefox sucked because it was too slow, but we fixed it and now it's not as slow anymore."  And to let us know how slow Firefox was, we are shown a girl attempting to drag a refrigerator down the street with her bike.

I have to admit, I don't see "man our product was a piece of junk" ads very often.  But again, maybe I'm missing something?

Extremely faint praise for Surface Laptop!

 

Well, I guess Rich Woods is just trying to be honest here, but this is a pretty damning "advertisement" for Surface Laptop, isn't it?

I mean, you can't describe it as "fast" or "easy to use" or "innovative" or "reliable?" You've got "sexy" and nothing else?  It could be as functional as a paperweight and be described as "sexy."  Are laptops just cars now?  All about the looks?  Nobody gives a damn if they actually work, as long as they let you show well to total strangers as you sit in Starbucks?

When I buy a computer, I don't look for a machine I want to stare at or date.  Rich Woods does?  Maybe you could keep your personal issues out of your reviews, Mr. Woods?

What the hell?

NFL Sunday Night Football v. College Gameday- Which is the Greatest Moment since the Big Bang?

So, which is superior at providing over-the-top, redefining excessive glitz, hammer-to-the-head Oh Please Be Convinced That This Is The Most Exciting Thing In The Freaking Universe crank up the volume commercialism?  ESPN's College Football Gameday or NBC's Sunday Night Football?

ESPN's features the musical--um, "stylings?" of something named Lzzy Hale (seriously?) screaming her ass off before transitioning to three hours of the musings of recent NFL washouts and ancient fossils drooling over college-aged men (Lee Corso is eighty-two freaking years old.  He's been ranting about these young men on television for thirty freaking years, never mind that the last of his brain cells died out at least tweny years ago.  It should be downright ILLEGAL for him to crowd-surf.  Enough already.)

NBC's features the downright embarressing pomping of Carrie Underwood introducing whatever matchup happens to be the last of the day as if it's the freaking Second Coming.  I've never managed to get through either of these cringe-worthy eardrum-assaulting celebrations of excess without slamming down the mute button- and they are almost worse with the sound down.

Only one of them can be the Most Significant Event in Human History since Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Commandments.  So which is it?

Kind of makes you wonder where football in general is going- if it's still "America's Game" and dominant in the ratings, why all this fake glitz and glam?  Do I detect the slightest hint of desperation here?