Tired of the cable news talking heads screaming at you through your television screen? Sick of Sean Hannity questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate on a nightly basis? Fed up with Rachel Maddow’s uncomfortable juxtaposition of sarcasm and condescension? Uninterested in watching Anderson Cooper get the crap beat out of him on live TV? Do you just want the news bare bones and unfiltered? Had enough of me asking all these rhetorical questions?
I couldn’t agree with you more. Luckily for you you’ve come to the right place.
Earlier this week I had an epiphany as I watched Anderson Cooper get repeatedly smashed in the face on CNN. I realized as a herd of angry Egyptians were throwing haymakers at the pundit’s notoriously perfect ivory locks that I wasn’t getting my news from the right medium; in fact I realized I wasn’t educating myself on current world affairs in the slightest.
So I did what anyone would do: I sat in my dorm played Madden and tried to assume what everyone was so angry about in Egypt. This is what I decided:
Pharaoh Hosni Mubarak clearly isn’t listening to the people of Egypt. I think we can all agree on that much. They say when you don’t do your history homework the past repeats itself (actually only my sophomore American history teacher told me that come to think of it). So it’s not a leap to assume Pharaoh Hosni was a slacker in high school or at the very least uninterested in the policies of past Egyptian rulers. Because of this he’s drawn the ire of his constituents.
Since the time of Moses God has been plaguing Egypt with well plagues in an effort to persuade the pharaohs into letting his people go. Well Ramses II (according to DreamWorks Animation’s “Prince of Egypt”) never did but they escaped anyway (see Exodus or the movie with that NRA guy in it). From time to time I think God keeps testing the pharaohs with more plagues just to see if they’ve softened their stance on him yet.
In 2011 the plagues aren’t as overt as millions of frogs or rivers of blood. The plagues of the modern age personify themselves in the form of rising food prices lack of governmental transparency literally no free speech minimum wages less than a cup of coffee at La Brea and enough corruption to fill a really big container or something.
On top of all that I think word just spread that Universal Pictures is producing a fourth installment of “The Mummy” franchise and is planning to move the plotline to Peru. Now the people of Egypt were able to overlook the lack of free speech for a long while and they even turned the other cheek when Universal Pictures kept casting Brendan Fraser (aka Dudley Do-right) as Rick O’Connell. Tension rose for a bit when the third film was set in China and that dumb indoor ride came out at Universal Studios but with time all anger eventually subsided.
But now it’s 2011 and the people of Egypt can’t get a loaf of bread without refinancing their mortgage start a sentence without the words “Praise Pharaoh Mubarak go to the theaters without Brendan Fraser mercilessly butchering their country’s rich history or step outside without a police officer assaulting them.
So they’ve finally said, enough is enough.” They’re tired of begging Pharaoh Mubarak to call Universal and order a cancellation of “The Mummy” movies — or at the very least recasting Fraser’s role to someone with more acting prowess like Lou Ferrigno. They’ve taken to the streets in an effort to solve a problem a couple thousand years in the making. They want the plagues to stop no matter how obscure.
How long must we wait before we realize the severity of this situation? Must the pyramids crumble into the Sahara before we realize that these people mean business? Do we really need Anderson Cooper to go over there and get punched in the face to understand the turmoil that exists?
I know I keep asking rhetorical questions to myself but maybe that’s what we should all do. I don’t exactly know what’s going on in Egypt right now but I do know that CNN wasn’t helping me get any closer to enlightenment. So until someone comes along with a good explanation or Wolf Blitzer somehow becomes more interesting than Madden my guess is as good as anyone else’s.