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As I tell me Lit. of the Western World students, existentialists begin with the notion that the world is immune to reason.\u00a0\u00a0Either the world is illogical or our limited thinking is unable to decipher it.\u00a0\u00a0Or both.\u00a0\u00a0And so, for my impotent effort to make clear what I mean, here is a brief list of the absurd, elements of our world which defy logic.\u00a0\u00a0(Help me out, here.\u00a0\u00a0If you can explain all of these to me\u00a0rationally<\/em>, I\u2019ll feel much better.)<\/p>\n- \n
- In Ypsilanti, the name of a store is \u201cGoing Postal.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I would have gone in to see what it was about, but I was afraid I\u2019d be shot. [Update: There is now a branch of this store in Royal Oak, a move which defies sensitivity.]<\/li>\n
- Someone has a website dedicated to the unibrow. (And no, I won’t help you find it!)<\/li>\n
- As many people tune in to watch the Superbowl commercials as the game; and the commercials cost $2.7 million for 30 seconds.<\/li>\n
- Someone had $2,700,000 and decided to spend it on 30 seconds of commercial time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
- Many someones.<\/li>\n
- A newscaster said Friday, \u201cWell, we were going to bring you that amazing feature story about an innovative elementary school, but this important news about Britney\u2019s hospitalization has bumped that story.\u201d<\/li>\n
- Definitely on the list is spelling the word “definately.”<\/li>\n
- Over two years after Katrina, more than 6,000 are still without homes.<\/li>\n
- Lies.<\/li>\n
- Despite everything we know about educational reform and successful student learning, our public schools use an agricultural calendar (pre-1900) to run classes based on a manufacturing model (c. 1920s) to serve 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century information age students.\u00a0\u00a0And ROHS begins school at 7:20 instead of 10:20.<\/li>\n
- Omarosa is now a celebrity.<\/li>\n
- So is Chris Crocker.
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<\/li>\n- Months into the presidential primary race and we have yet to hear any candidate\u2014Republican or Democrat\u2014speak substantively on any global issues but terrorism and Iraq.<\/li>\n
- The 1973 film\u00a0Horror Express<\/em>\u00a0still has not gained the respect it deserves.<\/li>\n
- Galoshes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
- A woman was reported driving while brushing her teeth, gargling, and spitting out the open window.\u00a0\u00a0Well, at least the window was open.<\/li>\n
- A\u00a0ham and cheese sandwich<\/a>\u00a0on one slice of bread is regulated by the Dept. of Agriculture, but if it\u2019s on two slices of bread, it\u2019s regulated by the FDA.<\/li>\n
- Bjork.<\/li>\n
- A teenager with a plastic egg filled with air-gun pellets is\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0for carrying a Weapon of Mass Destruction.<\/li>\n
- We have made 4\u00a0Saw<\/em>\u00a0movies, 7 Freddie movies, 12 Jason movies, and Sly Stallone still thinks he\u2019s Rambo.<\/li>\n
- Falun Gong protests and crackdowns in China are so common that foreign journalists are tired of writing about them. (Ian Johnson,\u00a0Wild Grass<\/em>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
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Jello.<\/li>\n- We actually have game shows\u00a0The Moment of Truth<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Battle of the Bods<\/em>, seemingly designed to demean people in the most vile ways.<\/li>\n
- Parents jeopardize their children\u2019s chances to fund college by falsifying their taxes and then refusing to complete a FAFSA.\u00a0\u00a0I now know of three families in Royal Oak.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I leave it to you.\u00a0\u00a0Help me out of my existential funk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maybe I\u2019m in the mood to vent\u2014but why should I?\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not like our world is full of the ridiculous, packed with the absurd, stuffed with the ludicrous.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not like I can\u2019t make sense of the planet. As I tell me Lit. of the Western World students, existentialists begin with the notion that the world is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,300],"tags":[433,434,351,435,436],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chizblog","category-philosophy","tag-absurd","tag-bjork","tag-existentialism","tag-falun-gong","tag-katrina"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/04\/092511_0258_33PriceTags2.png?fit=304%2C214&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1864,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/spells-of-protection\/","url_meta":{"origin":820,"position":0},"title":"Spells of Protection","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2017 Aug 30","format":false,"excerpt":"We can read this deliberate ambiguity in a number of ways: the particular puzzled psychoses of repressed females, for instance, or the dysfunctional power relationships within families; the self-struggling identities of adolescent development or even the unreasonable demands of an outside world to extract simple clarity from complex humanity.","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/08\/whalitc-feat.jpg?fit=409%2C301&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1728,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/american-road-trip-1-grass-lake-to-the-porcupines\/","url_meta":{"origin":820,"position":1},"title":"American Road Trip 1: Grass Lake to the Porcupines","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2009 Jul 24","format":false,"excerpt":"Day One: Grass Lake to Hiawatha Driving north through Michigan's lower peninsula is largely routine for too many of us trolls (what the Yoopers call residents of the lower state). The occasional construction zone, the intermittent shower which grays out the windshield, the Winnebago which won't do more than 45\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/04\/072609_0500_AmericanRoa1.jpg?fit=323%2C217&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":797,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/come-back-to-the-raft-jim\/","url_meta":{"origin":820,"position":2},"title":"Come Back to the Raft, Jim","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2011 Jan 18","format":false,"excerpt":"As a literature teacher and one offering my students a discussion of deconstruction these past weeks, it is impossible for me not to address the recent controversy around Huck Finn. For those of you too concerned about the real news of George Clooney in Sudan, the Golden Globes, and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/04\/011711_0723_ComeBacktot3.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2560,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/zzsg-ch-5-aftermath\/","url_meta":{"origin":820,"position":3},"title":"Zack’s Zombie Survival Guide: Ch. 5 – Aftermath","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2021 Jun 1","format":false,"excerpt":"Like the characters themselves, viewers are left with a futility that either their hours were wasted or they must see the film as a \u201csunk cost\u201d and thereby invest still more time in prequels and spin-offs.","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/zombie-game.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/zombie-game.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/zombie-game.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/zombie-game.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1538,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/1538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Parents jeopardize their children\u2019s chances to fund college by falsifying their taxes and then refusing to complete a FAFSA.\u00a0\u00a0I now know of three families in Royal Oak.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n