Sympathy Should be Shown to the Families First

It is a cruel joke on our nation's character that we are now relieved when a mass shooting produces fewer than ten victims. America's heart should go out for the families of the victims and then for the UCSB community.

Ultimately Elliot Rodger's self-image did not match up to his reality. He was a 22-year-old community college student who never worked a steady job in his life. He had a totally unwarranted sense of entitlement and elitism, making him an obnoxious twerp as well as a murderer. The media is neglecting to note that his rantings were moments of lucidity; his life was not working out that way that he intended, which led to his explosion of horrible rage. And the fact that his killing spree largely occurred with the assistance of a BMW (a gift from a parent) has made him the posterchild for privilege.

To blame the actions of Rodger on Judd Apatow or any of the Hollywood elite is, however, asinine. It is picking a successful artist, then trying to link the behavior of a madman to their work is what countless idiots have tried with Catcher in the Rye. Now some idiots are pointing seemingly randomly at movies where the average guy gets the hot girl like Puritans who never learned to read. (This is a trope that deserves to die, but does not deserve to be killed by feminists or anyone else. Seth Rogen will be held accountable for his crimes someday. Don't you worry.)

Working thru his manifesto. It has excellent spelling and grammar, but is otherwise dull writing. You see his obsession with World of Warcraft and other role-playing games. (This community will now, always, get a bad wrap on account of so many of their members committing murderous rampages.) He recognizes that his life isn't going great, but he cannot connect his problems with his behavior. So far, there is no mention of him approaching the "beautiful girls" whom he wants to have sex with--he can only lash out in petty ways when they DON'T take the initiative to connect with him. He thinks himself a gentleman but in reality he is ill, and he probably had the idea that he was a gentleman implanted in him by a society that confused his quietness and smallness with politeness and decency. If you did not know how this story was going to turn out, you would feel pity for someone so deluded but otherwise non-violent.

It is intellectually lazy to classify him as a misogynist. (For sincere misogyny, please consult the Columbine killers' writings.) He liked women, and sincerely didn't understand why they didn't reciprocate because of a communication and logic gap. He had no history of sexual assault, which is what one would suspect of a murderous sex offender. Most of the people whom he apparently hated were men who were succeeding in relationships with women. When he did explode, the first people killed were his male roommates (who undeniably did mock his lack of game). Far from being a misogynist, there is no word to describe Elliot Rodger.

#YesAllWomen has gotten douchey, though. At the club, women will be hit on--I will ask her "how you doin'?" Because I would like to know how the chick is doing, and talking to her while being a black guy does not constitute a sex crime. (I'll accuse you of a hate crime for accusing me of a sex crime. I can be hysterical too.) It belittles the seriousness of rape to claim that a guy who says "let's get out of here and go some place quieter" is rape. Stop it. There are appropriate places to say and do sexual things, and a woman's say in the matter is 50%. Women cannot control every situation that they are in; you do not get to be comfortable wherever you go, ladies. I have not taken my junk out and placed it on her head while riding the subway (which I've also done). I will not apologize for being a man anymore than I expect ladies to apologize for the femaleness. There are clear gender differences or rules to be considered--not ignored--in our society. Rodger became a mass murderer because he couldn't understand the rules: 9s date 9s, maybe 8s. He had neither the talent nor the skills to pretend to be something higher.

#BringBackOurGirls ...assholes.

Al Qaeda is calling their press agents, and saying: "Hey, this isn't us. We don't practice sex slavery.... Death to Israel, death to Israel."

This is where you are now, dudes. You have to abduct girls to get laid. Personally I am confused as to what parts of the Koran says that sex slavery is to be encouraged--they would know this, too, if they knew how to read. Part of the real world is hearing thoughts that are offensive to you--including secular education, or "education," as it is also known. (Interestingly enough, most of the world's Muslims are illiterate. I'm not making this up. Arabic, Farsi--they can't read any of it.) It's asinine that Christians would deny reality to buttress their religious teachings, it's asinine when Muslims do it as well. Really Boko is fully living up to the Fox News' depiction of Muslims, Arabs, black guys and the poor. Congratulations. You're making Fox News sensible.

As so often the case, the turds have floated to the top, with Rush Limbaugh managing to mock the First Lady's use of Twitter to apply social pressure to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. I just wanted to share that. There are still turds in America, despite our attempts to advance women's rights in both the US and abroad. Whatever Obama might do, some Republicans will rally around evil. (Rightwingers defend Boko; leftwingers defend Bono, whose music is good.) Republicans will announce that Obama should do both more and less to rescue these girls--including ignoring the will of the Nigerian government and begin a military invasion of Nigeria.

I really want this to end up with a happy ending, but we all know that it's only a matter of how bad this situation is going to get.

So...heard about what Don Sterling said?

I love that the breaking point was this chick having her photo taken alongside black people. Can we all agree on the hilarity of that? Can we all love that?

You also get a sense that there would be less controversy if he owned an NHL franchise or a NASCAR team--where saying black people shouldn't show up is kinda redundant. He would've been fined but not banned for life. Telling black people not to come to NBA games--really? Really that's like telling the lesbians not to come to an LPG tournament.

Here's my defense of him: Sterling was entitled to make racist comments in private without a nosy journalist recording him and saying: "You're busted!" The issue should be his broken promises to charities, shady business dealings, corruption and generally awfulness--not his personal opinion of African Americans. Now another recording just came out--possibly as a weird cover for the first recording, clarifying what he meant, but it feels like we all know what he really meant.

This entire tape controversy also distracts from Sterling's shady business dealings. This guy is a slumlord, and his wife was caught on tape posing as a housing inspector to harass some poor renters. Oh, and his kid shot a guy in the back and claimed self-defense.

This V. Stivi-whatever is clearly a nutjob, too, by the way. She clearly leaked the tape. Whatever good things that she might've done in her past, she's also a fame whore. If Sterling wasn't giving her money for sex, then he just wasted a few million on him, which makes Sterling stupid as well as sleazy and racist. According to the LA times, this was the Sterlings MO: Don would seduce a young woman with extravagant gifts, then when he broke the relationship off, his wife would harass the mistress to get some of the stuff back under the principle that it was common property. These two are amongst the worst human beings alive.

In the next few months, he will attempt to play on the public's sympathies by donating money and looking for black people to hang-out with (which will also require money). He will claim medical and psychiatric problems. But ultimately there's no treatment for being an asshole.

Some Darwin Awards 2014 Nominees and One Also-Ran

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. Whenever anyone anywhere does anything stupid in this world, the first thing black Americans think is: Please don't be a black person. Lady tries to rob a convenience store naked from the waist down? "Don't be a black lady." Knock-out game? "Don't be black kids." Mayor caught smoking crack? "Don't be Marion Barry." (Fortunately that time was Toronto Mayor Bob Ford.) This thought came to my mind immediately upon learning that a kid had tried to hitch a ride to Hawaii in the wheelwell of a commuter jet, miraculously surviving the bitter cold and thin air of high altitude travel in an unpressurized container. This guy surely Googled how to sneak into a commuter jet's wheelwell but he didn't Google what would happen if you fly 20,000 feet in a non-pressurized compartment--where survival of the journey becomes more unlikely than possible. It turns out this kid originally came from Somalia, and though I do not know what desperation this young man was going through that made him think that this was a viable option, but it doesn't change that this was a dumbass move, and he barely avoided winning a Darwin Award.

When someone does something extremely dumbass, and the result of their stupidity is their own death--and they have failed to reproduce--they are to be nominated for the Darwin Awards. As dark as it might be to think about, really, it's for the best that some people don't have children. Outside forces did not cause their deaths--they'd brought it on themselves.

Also this week loon Bryon Smith was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of two teens who had broken into his home. Like the George Zimmerman case, this defies traditional criminal charges: This is where the victim became the perpetrator, and the victim becomes wholly unsympathetic--and the one man left standing could control the narrative. The castle doctrine should've provided Smith with more authority to kill the intruders--a portion of self-defense erraticism that I actually support. However this guy was undone when he told the truth--he didn't attempt to whitewash what he'd done with conflicting accounts--unlike Zimmerman. Smith clearly tortured those kids--and clearly he should've either lied afterwards or claimed some mental ailment. (Plus they were white.) His inability to stage a cover-up has led to his arrest for the crime.

What is disturbing besides the kids' deaths was the way in which the mainstream media are covering it: Emphasizing how "innocent" and "popular" the white kids were--while burying the fact that they were breaking into homes when the shooting occured. Further they were shot multiple times wheras Trayvon Martin was shot once (Still, the same media that didn't question why Zimmerman had called the police when he didn't see the black kid commit a crime is now not questioning why the pretty white kids had broken into at least one home. The media bent over backwards to make a white girl look innocent while bending over backwards to make a black guy look guilty.) In all likelihood, they were trying to rob Smith's place, and their fun exploration into criminal behavior was interrupted a genuinely damaged individual with guns. What was a home invasion robbery was turned into a juvenile rite of passage because the criminals did not fit the profile and out of fear of appearing insensitive to the dead kids' families. Smith will pay for his crimes for the remainder of his life; but the media's coverage of this case has been inexcusable too.

A Woman's Nuclear Option

This week Lindsay Lohan revealed that her unprofessionalism during the shooting of her O! unscripted show was on account of her miscarriage. That truly was shocking, but it also doesn't explain her unprofessionalism in the years prior to her miscarriage.

Ladies, is that like the nuclear option for you? Is that the one thing that any woman can say to justify her behavior and end the conversation about some controversial matter? "I had a miscarriage." (The first nuclear option is "I was raped.") It's like: "I'm sorry to hear about your miscarriage...but you still won the argument. Okay." As much as the feminists want to rise above this towards gender equality, there remains a difference between the genders, which allows for women to have this prerogative; and common decency allows us to give women a pass. There is nothing intellectual or academic about it.

We should take Lohan's word that she did suffer a miscarriage, if only because it would make us look terrible if we accused her of lying about such an awful event. But she will have trouble using it as an excuse for missing some later assignment, of course.

Spider-Man sex scandal vs. Superman sex scandal: Who would win in a fight?

I've never been a fan of real-life heroes--and there's a reason why. In the past month, sex scandals have engulfed two men whose work I've otherwise respected: James Franco and Bryan Singer.

I've always liked James Franco--despite the fact that he was once in a longtime relationship with Marla Sokoloff, whom I really liked. Apparently he never had sex with Lindsay Lohan. He never smoked weed with Seth Rogen (and smoking weed with Seth Rogen seems to be a prerequisite to being Seth Rogen's friend). He is genuinely committed to art and education, as pretentious as that might sometime seem. He doesn't broadcast his sleazy behavior, and despite the fact that he always seems to be squinting, he seems like a good guy and not a Hollywood douche. This non-doucheness has taken a hit with his attempts last night to seduce an almost 18-year-old tourist who was just excited to meet James Franco.

Since then, there has been a full-court press from him to try to make light of it--he doesn't want to seem to be running from it, and that's smart. He went on Live... and SNL to talk about it--"Aren't I wacky? Isn't the Internet wacky? I'm James Franco!" Legally, he might be in the clear, certainly. It's legal in New York state for a man in his mid-30s to have sex with a 17-year-old. (Franco was born and raised in California.) There is a long, should be more shameful history of celebrities having sex with 17-year-olds--Wilmer Valderama, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld. Certainly a precedence for doing it and escaping scrutiny. Morally, however, it raises the question of how young is too young for James Franco? Where does he draw the line?

Then there's the theory that this incident was done to promote his forthcoming indie with Emma Roberts, where he plays a gym teacher who enters into an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old. Appearing to be a shorteyes does not seem to be a good strategy for promotion of a single film, even for a man accustomed to such erraticism in the name of art.

The most realistic explanation was that Franco tried to get with a barely legal girl, and he overestimated how enamored she was with him. She was a fan--but not so much a fan for that. (How much has this worked in the past for him? Normally The Franco gets what he wants.) This girl really just liked his work; she probably grew up watching his movies. Her parents raised her not to have hook-ups with inappropriately older guys--and it's easy to forget how much older Franco really is compared to a teenager. (There's also the issue as to what he would've done if she'd said "sure." I think we can all imagine what he would've done.)

The case against Bryan Singer is much worse--not because he's gay, but because of the sordid nature of the allegations and the allegations of actual sexual contact, not just intended contact. Still, it seems not to be a coincidence that these allegations are surfacing right before the statute of limitations would expire and in the weeks before the biggest movie of Singer's career opens and the premiere of his show Black Box. It seems that, regardless of the truth, the accuser is attempting to maximize any legal settlement. Really, if Singer had been accused of this during last year's Jack the Giant Slayer, rape would've been the second worst thing he was capable of.

Singer has taken the exact opposite tact: He is avoiding unnecessary contact with the press. As a gay man, he must be especially sensitive about allegations that he's also a pervert. The American people have come a long way in accepting homosexuality as normal since the '90s. Time will tell if more men come forward, which will be the best indication as to whether the charges of the Hollywood gay sex parties leading to rape are true. If these allegations are true, I will be reluctant to watch further Bryan Singer movies, not that I wouldn't appreciate the memories that his work has given me in the past.

Is Katherine Heigl's reputation really worth $6 million?

I've had a thing for Katherine Heigl since Roswell. She was several years older than me, and her breasts made her look like a genius of some kind--possibly a rocket scientist. Contradictory, when she made it big on Grey's Anatomy, I began to lose interest in her, my teen infatuation abated by both the passage of time and the new hype that surrounded her.

Recently the drugstore chain Duane Reade used Heigl's image in an ad without her consent, and Heigl in turn sued--understandably. This begs the question: Is Katherine Heigl's reputation still worth $6 million? If the drug store had done this above board, would Heigl have received $6 million for her endorsement? No, certainly not in 2013. This suit is to make herself look better, reminding us all of the charity set-up in memory of her late brother and that Katherine Heigl still exists.

She is allegedly terrible to work with. She chain smokes. She was allegedly one of the driving forces to get Isaiah Washington fired from Grey's. On the set of Roswell, she was frequently late, missing her call-time intentionally. Not because of some emergencies but because she respected the production so little that she didn't even care to be on time. (This anecdote is from the interview that she gave in a 2006 FHM interview.) She was actually the biggest star on that WB show, it should be noted--having worked with both Gerard Deperdieu and Steven Seagal in Under Siege 2 (no--that was big)--and so it is easy to imagine why she thought she was gracing the teen sci-fi show with her presence. Her mother has been described as terrible too.

Despite Heigl's pluses--her apparently good marriage, her decision to adopt children, her sobriety. She might be totally loyal to her friends like TR Knight and her family (like many Mormons), she still manages to be seen as a pill. She does not work with actors more than once. Her greatest movie--Knocked Up--was derided by her, and she hasn't worked with Judd Apatow since.

The people you meet climbing the ladder of Hollywood success are the people you see during your downfall, and Heigl has been freefalling. This can be summed-up by one damaging assessment: In a 2013 Forbes article, she was linked to both Adam Sandler and Reese Witherspoon as the most overpaid stars in Hollywood. Hollywood will allow any matter of bitchiness or perversion, as long as the talent is commercial or critically successful.

I think a career-revival is possible, though. Yes, her greatest work has since been voice-acting in the animated The Nut Job--although no one sees a talking squirrel movie for Katherine Heigl; they see it because squirrels are awesome. She'll probably be returning to TV in the fall, although returning to TV can be seen as acknowledging defeat--but the low-point was still probably the Nyquil commercial, so the only place from here is up. (Oddly enough, the world didn't need any more Katherine Heigl movies.) What remains of her career is to be seen.