Perhaps empathy is only really possible through aliens.
I saw District 9 over the weekend, and it is an amazing movie. Not to give anything away, but using survelliance footage, documentary style interviews, and just straight up movie time, they create a world where aliens have landed in South Africa and are treated like second class citizens. It’s a great demonstration of how, if you treat people like animals, they will start to behave like animals, plus it has lots of fun explosions and fighting and stuff. I left the movie thinking that every racist should see it.
Well, apparently psychology researchers have had the same notion.
Fun psychology study ahead!!
Gynomite’s Emotional Assignment of the Day
I come from a family where OCD runs rampant,and while that has often been a bit disruptive, one important thing that I’ve learned from watching OCD in action is the importance of ritual, so today’s emotional assignment is recognizing the rituals already in your life and adding more.
Obviously, rather than anything involving black candles or weird chanting, rituals are just a series of acts that you do in order to commemorate something. I think the “something” is where most people get stuck.
This just in: PETA using the same motivational techniques that bad husbands in TV shows use….
Remember that episode of Golden Girls where Blanche’s grownup daughter shows up and she’s much fatter than she used to be and she’s engaged to a guy who calls her a fatass every five minutes? And finally Blanche tells him off and everything works out ok?
Well, PETA decided that was a good tack to take with their new ad campaign.
Nice job guys!
(via Feministing)
Ironically, the one guy that could have cleared this up quickly is….Superman.
The creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, have been in a legal battle with DC Comics for years and years for the rights to their creation.
In 1975, Siegel and Schuster started a public-relations campaign to protest their the shitty deal they got from DC and won a settlement of $20K a year for the rest of their lives as well as being credited as the creators of Superman in any shows/films/video games forever.
Sounds like they were being thrown a bone to me, but they took it.
Then in 1999, Siegel’s widow filed a copyright termination against DC for Siegel’s share of Superman. Then DC filed a countersuit, then things started getting really ugly, and it’s not really stopped since then.
But finally, the court has made a little bit of headway in dividing up the now soulless corpse of Superman. Read on if you want to have any sense of wonder about the magic of comic books destroyed.
Ask Gynomite
I’ve recently gotten a couple of questions about what you do when you become friends with someone who immediately just saps all of your energy because they are so insanely needy. This was actually one of the first questions I ever got here, so I’ve just decided to reprint it with a few changes. People who asked this, if you don’t think this answer applies to you enough, let me know!
Email askgynomite@gmail.com if you’ve got a dilemma and need a bit of Gynomite.
Hey Gynomite, can you help me figure out how to break up with a friend? I have this female friend that has gotten increasingly odd and angry and clingy in our interactions. We haven’t known each other for long, and at first I thought it was cool that she always wanted to hang out, but if I have other plans, she either invites herself along or gets weirdly hurt that she’s not involved. I know she’s had some tough stuff happen to her in her life, but I feel like I have to hang out with her more than actually wanting to hang out with her, and that sucks. I want out. Help!
My goodness, that is tough. It’s hard when people you know really well go through a rough time, but it’s even harder when someone you barely know presents to your life with a bucketful of miserable.
Well, congratulations Hollywood.
You managed to take an extremely attractive, unique looking woman…
Tattoo artist/reality star Kat Von D
…chew her up, give her cocaine/low self-esteem, and turn her into more crap for the masses.
The Real Axis of Evil
Dane Cook, Jeremy Piven, and Kid Rock, posing for a pic for the middle school yearbook.
From Max Silvestri’s Twitterfeed, with the hilarious caption “You’re probably wondering where Hitler is, but he’s taking the picture”.
Crossover art is the sincerest form of flattery
Apparently it’s a tiny Internet meme to make versions of Pokemon’s main… Pokemon, Pikachu, that are hybrids with other cartoon characters.
Good lord, isn't he cute?
Jump to see some of the weirder ones that I found here.
Romantic song lyric faceoff!!!
We’ve been listening to Beyonce’s Halo a lot lately, and that song is just awesome. I like thinking about her writing it about Jay-Z, and then I like thinking about Jay-Z with a halo. It’s a lovely romantic ditty, and if you haven’t heard it, you may be deaf.
However, I also love another romantic song called Halo.
On this amazing collection, I found the Cure song Halo, which to me is one of the most romantic songs of all time. I used to listen to it a lot when Kumail and I started dating. So after the jump are the lyrics to both songs, and let’s see who wins the title of “MOST ROMANTIC SONG CALLED HALO!”
