Sunday 26 July 2020

Nerd Church - Caffeinated Current Events: Explaining the Headlines

(Warning: this post discusses Covid 19/Coronavirus, the backlash against Black Lives Matter, and general Nazis. Because 2020.)



If you don't know, Caffeinated Current Events (CCE) is where I explain various stuff in the news whilst under the influence of caffeinated beverages.

I haven't actually written a CCE post in a while because... 2020. But I felt like now was the right time to do so because... 2020.




'Caffeinated Current Events' with an artsy silhouetted coffee cup in the background





Disclaimer Time: This post is primarily a satirical and snarky look at the news, intended for entertainmaint and comedy purposes. As such, hyperbole is likely. You've been warned - don't sue.



This time, I thought I'd take some real-life headlines and explain them with my own cynically optimistic and optimistically cynical caffeine-hyped frame of mind.

I'll link to the article each headline comes from so that you can see what the 'professional' news reporting is like!





Fess up: who had naked chick does yoga in the middle of martial law on their 2020 bingo cards? 

It has to be one of you.




This White chick, wearing nothing but a mask, a stocking cap, and her birthday suit, decided to... put on a display... in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Dubbed 'Naked Athena,' (...ok? I guess?) she stood between protesters and the Federal Trump-squad who were there to mercilessly crush peaceful protest 'restore order.'

This... bizarre personification of the unpredictability of 2020... then proceeded to do some ballet and yoga. 

She also sat down in the street and spread her legs. 

...I can't tell whether that's brave or foolish. Maybe both? Both seems very 2020.




Not everyone is supportive of the Naked Athena though - and I don't just mean anti-Black-Lives-Matter people.

A lot of people, validly, feel that her actions were distracting from the protests, and centring the spectacle of a performing White women over the deaths of Black people.

(I couldn't find any criticisms to link to which weren't behind a pay wall - lemme know if you know of any!)




Elmo standing in front of burning flames
This gif was required.

Via Giphy



Apparently Tucker Carlson is one of the puppets they employ on Fox News to read out whatever stuff Oscar the Grouch's racist cousin has come up with.

He got very, very, angry at Elmo's dad for explaining that racism and prejudice exists.




...It must be a special type of privilege to be angrier at someone for explaining that racism and prejudice exists, than you are at racism and prejudice for actually existing.

The internet was around to explain the folly of a grown man fighting with a puppet, but luckily Elmo's dad was too mature to take the bait anyway.

dividing line




What, you haven't seen Covid-19 conspiracy theories?! Where have you been?!

This article is talking about one of the more dangerous theories - that the US Covid death toll has been artificially inflated so that Trump looks bad.

The danger of this is that, unlike some of the wackier and more tin-foil-hat type theories, there's just enough truth to give the semblance of credence to the lie.

But it is a lie.




First off, Trump is perfectly capable of looking bad all on his lonesome. 

Secondly, I personally think the US death tolls are a running on a conservative estimate - it wouldn't surprise me if the real numbers were a lot higher. 

But that's based on a gut feeling around Trump's actions towards the CDC, etc.


dividing line





I mean, it's always the people you least expect, isn't it?

Never would have thought that Miss Buchenwald would turn out to be a Nazi. Such a shock.



Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) standing next to Joey (Matt LeBlanc) from Friends: That is brand new information!
Via Giphy




Also, can we talk about how there's apparently a beauty pageant (possibly several from what I can see... my search history for this post might get me arrested, #BloggerProblems) called 'Miss Hitler'?!

So, Alice Cutter and her a-hole friends were jailed for being members of National Action - a group that's on the British list of terrorist organisations that you aren't legally allowed to be in. 

It's like the extremist version of Santa's naughty list - they're some Very. Bad. People.


dividing line




(Note: the LGBTQ+ news site Pink News was the only British site I could find which actually explicitly stated what happened in the headline. I wonder why...)



Nazis saluting Churchill's statue by the War Memorial in London while they 'protect' it?

Yes, these maggots crawled out of the woodwork to 'counter-protest' (i.e. riot against,) the Black Lives Matter protests.





There'd been some controversy over statues of historical figures with connections to slavery and/or racist policies, with a statue of a Bristol slaveholder being thrown in the river.

And Churchill had some pretty racist views and policies, and the statue had been graffiti tagged to read 'Winston Churchill... was a racist' recently.

That said, I don't think anyone was planning on damaging the statue during that weekend's protests - although obviously I can't speak for every single person there.





And the Nazis somehow did not see the irony of Nazi-saluting Churchill.

Nazi-saluting. Winston Churchill.

How can you not see the irony there?!


dividing line

Nerd Church is going on break in August, and will be back on 6th September 2020



Do you know of any headlines which more fully sum-up the bizarreness of 2020 so far?
Talk to me! 😎💬






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2 comments:

  1. I can see why people might have had issues with the Naked Athena picture. I do think the photo could have distracted people from the real issue at hand. But, the photo also says a lot about females doing whatever they want with their bodies and not fearing being overly sexualized, so I guess a good message can come out of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think there's arguments for and against - because nothing brings press attention quite as much as a naked chick!

      Delete

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