Awkward Press

My wife and I took our 10-month old daughter Zellie on the Occupy LA march over the weekend. It was a very peaceful, if somewhat subdued moment of people coming together to express their common frustration with the state of our country. I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity; I know the coverage of Zuccotti Park tends to focus on the punks and hipsters, but every age and walk of life was represented at Occupy LA. I would even say it skewed old. Turnout felt somewhat sparse when I was in the thick of it, but the local news estimated the crowd was between 10 and 15,000 strong, which sounds like a pretty impressive figure to me. Zellie did not seem that impressed, but the only thing that really excites her at this age is bananas.

It was the first march I’ve ever been a part of. I’ve always been more of a complainer than a protestor. My civil disobedience mostly takes the form of snarky Facebook status updates and rambling emails to my friend. That’s not a typo, I really only have one friend. My only real involvement in politics to date consisted of attending the Ralph Nader rally at Madison Square Garden in 2000 (Tim Robbins showed up as Bob Roberts! Don’t worry; no one got it then, either) and making a few hours worth of phone calls for Obama in 2008.

Oh, I also went to see George Bush Sr. speak in high school, but that was for a girl. The President was on a Whistle Stop train tour that whistled to a stop 20 miles from my hometown, and the highly crush-worthy Julie C. invited me to join her family at the station. Under those kinds of circumstances, how could I refuse? You show me a guy who won’t drive 20 miles to watch the President wave from a sweet-looking vintage train with the girl he wants to bone and I’ll show you a guy who doesn’t believe in America. (more…)

Mark Green is the best. There’s no question about it. He’s a political scenester in New York who is apparently running for public advocate. He just made this ad that proves you don’t need any money to do something awesome:

A few years ago, I went to some fund-raising event that Kyle was performing at. It was at the nonprofit where FOA (friend of Awkward) Desiree Burch worked, and after the performances, the woman who headed the charity up gave a short speech. Afterwards, Kyle and I were riding in the elevator with Mr. Green, who had come to see the event. First of all, he’s a short, short man. Second of all, we got to talking with him, and Kyle asked him if he enjoyed himself.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Especially the final speaker. What a doll.”

“Yeah, she wasn’t bad,” Kyle said.

“She’s my wife,” Mark Green admitted.

“Your wife is a foxy, foxy lady,” Kyle said.

To this day, I am unaware of whether Kyle had any idea who he was talking to, but it was a smooth move, nonetheless.

From the AP, by way of HuffPo:

The House’s guest chaplain, in the opening prayer for Thursday’s session, also appeared to refer to Wilson’s outburst. “Gracious God, we meet in a challenging moment of your history. We cannot control all that may endanger us, but we can choose our behavior and the example we set as leaders,” said The Very Rev. George L.W. Werner, dean emeritus of Trinity Cathedral in Pittsburgh.

“Very Reverend”? That’s an actual title? That’s the coolest actual title I’ve ever heard.

Also, what is it with Joe Wilsons and scandals? First Valerie Plame, and now “Shout-gate”? I’m beginning to think that “Joe Wilson” is just a made-up person the media throws out there anytime they need to spice up the news a bit. Fact: Joe Wilson and Joe Wilson have never been seen in the same room together. It’s true!

I’ve been trying to contain political stuff to my personal blog, on account of how Awkward Press is happy to take your money no matter what your political affiliation. But this is the single best discussion I have seen on health care reform and I encourage everyone to take 25 minutes to watch it today. I have no idea why it is up to a comedy show to present an intelligent debate on this topic. But, America! America crazy.

(Video after the break.)

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Polls are the best. I love how smart and scientific they are, all the time. To wit:

More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a “choice” between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.

A new study by SurveyUSA puts support for a public option at a robust 77 percent, one percentage point higher than where it stood in June.

But the numbers tell another story, as well.

Earlier in the week, after pollsters for NBC dropped the word “choice” from their question on a public option, they found that only 43 percent of the public were in favor of “creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies.”

That’s great. So the information we have about people’s support of a public option can change by 30 points depending on how many words are in the question. Science!

To be fair, that second choice sounds awfully complicated. I probably wouldn’t have voted for it, either, and I think the entire health insurance industry should be abolished.

Awkwardpress.com is quickly becoming your go-to resource for all news Persepolis (see right sha and sha). In a stunning turn of events, Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi apparently knows what really happened in the Iranian election:

Two Iranian filmmakers on Tuesday presented a document to Green Party MPs in the European parliament claiming to show that defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had received over 19 million votes in the weekend election.

Marjane Satrapi, Iranian author and director and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an Iranian filmmaker and Mousavi spokesman, presented a document that they claimed had come from the Iranian electoral commission.

The document said liberal cleric and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi came second in the election with a total of 13.3 million votes, while president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came third with only 5.49 million votes.

“Ahmadinejad received only 12 percent of the vote, not 65 percent,” said Marjane Satrapi, who was the director of Oscar-nominated film Persepolis.

If this is true, you gotta at least give Ahmadinejad credit for having absolutely no concern with finesse. He didn’t just steal this election, he pillaged it. Which, if you’re gonna steal an election, freaking steal that shit, right? None of this “we’ll leave it up to the Supreme Court” bullshit. You gotta grab that shit and put it in your pocket, and when other people are like, “I just saw you stick that election in your pocket,” you’re like “but I don’t even have any hands.” And then when they’re all, “what?” you’re like, “laterz!”

Headline from the LA Times today:

Obama policy is outreach to gays

I haven’t actually read the article yet, because doing so would take time away from my bond trading hobby busy derivative trading schedule gun cleaning regimen. But I am strangely fascinated by this headline. It is referring to the administration’s new policy of giving equal rights to homosexual couples who work for the State Department. Which, I have a friend who works for the State Department, and she said she has coworkers who are a lesbian couple. When they are stationed in a new country, they always get stationed together. But the State Department must put them up in two different apartments. Which, you don’t think about the logistics of little things like that, but apparently that’s how it goes.

When I first read this headline, I wasn’t aware it was referring to a specific decision. I thought it was just saying that Obama had a personal policy of reaching out to gays. Like Oprah. There is something very funny about this headline that I can’t quite put my finger on. Help me out, people! Why is this headline funny?

Health insurance is the dumbest system anyone could ever create for dealing with sick people. Insurance in general makes no sense. I can understand paying for things that you are going to use. If I buy a CD (plastic containment system for music, popular circa 1985-2005), then I get to keep that CD and the music that is on it. One does not have a similar thrill of ownership with health insurance. My insurance company won’t even give me a book listing my benefits. I am paying approximately $2400/year for a plastic card. They could at least make the cards out of something slightly more substantial, like pewter.

At its heart, health insurance is a punishment and reward system for bodily functions. According to Wikipedia, the health insurance system as it stands today did not develop until the 1950s. Before that, when you went to the doctor, you paid him for the doctoring he gave you. Now you pay the insurance company in advance for the doctoring you might get in the future, and then you pay the doctor a little bit more when he actually gives you that doctoring. What Wikipedia does not say, and what I have always been curious about: why does health care have anything to do with employment? I can understand that it is in a company’s best interest to make sure their employees are physically well. But there are an awful lot of areas where my employer does not seem to care about my health. Like food. Employers do not buy my groceries. Or sleep. I am required to buy my own mattresses and make sure I get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

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Okay, so what’s the story with Iran, anyway? I’ll admit, pretty much everything I know about Iranian history I learned from watching Persepolis. I didn’t even read Persepolis, I watched Persepolis. Which, now that I think about it, Persepolis is subtitled, so it’s probably actually more work to watch Persepolis than it is to read the graphic novel upon which it’s based. That is a first in the history of movies.

But so I get it, Iran was a totally fun, free country before the hardliners came to power in the 80s. And now it’s awful and scary or whatever. But they have elections? And they’re not just a sham? Everyone seems surprised at the possibility that Ahmadinejad could have stolen the election. But like, if Kim Jong Il won the popular vote in North Korea, I don’t think anyone would bat an eyelash. So what is Iran? A democracy, or a dictatorship? Right, okay, the Ayatollah or whoever is really in charge, and the president’s just a figurehead. So then why did we ever give a shit about Ahmadinejad in the first place? I’m so confused!

In other news, here’s a picture of a cat in a taco outfit.

(Via Buzzfeed.)

From an article about beleaguered British PM Gordon Brown:

Only last week, Brown spoke of how his “Presbyterian conscience” had been hurt by the extravagant expense claims made by many of his parliamentary colleagues. And in his awkward press conference on Friday afternoon, he again invoked his father’s teachings.

For the record, Mr. Brown is in no way affiliated with Awkward Press, LLC, or any of our subsidiaries, including Delusional Paranoids & Co., Outrageously Incompetent Trust, or Worse than Thatcher, LTD.