It’s been a crazy week, dear readers. Between that nonsensical WWE “Whose-nominee-is-this-guy-anyway?” deathmatch in Cleveland, Ohio, and Summer classes, it’s no wonder some of you might feel a bit overwhelmed. In times like these, kicking back and listening to some tunes might be all you need. Might we recommend to you some hot summer ’16 releases like “Dark Necessities” by the Melania Trump Chili Peppers or perhaps “Bored to Death” by Melania-182?
Darts & Laurels
We’ve hinted at the Republican National Convention, and all of its galore is featured throughout today’s columns. But we have to take a minute and seriously address the convention and the media’s sensationalized coverage of it. We’re looking at you CNN — well, at least one ad you published we feel characterizes a broader issue.
A 30-second CNN ad promoting the RNC continues to float around social media, and it does more to shine the spotlight on Donald Trump than anything else. “You’ve heard his every word,” the video text reads as various controversial Trump clips play in the background. “You’ve talked about him with everyone: with family, with friends, with total strangers. So, what will he say… on his biggest stage yet?”
This is the sort of sensationalist hype the media gave to Trump that inadvertently helped him win the nomination to begin with, even when countless pundits and experts touted that we would never see this day come. Yet, we continue to make the same mistake: a dart to these big name media outlets who, despite their resources, continue without fail to abuse their addiction to ratings, no matter how much it damages the American people and the state of our politics.
There are so many real issues that should be canvassing our news feed. There’s a possibility U.S.-led proxies in Syria bombed and killed 56 civilians in an attempt to hit Islamic State group forces, and President Erdogan in Turkey’s clamping is going after teachers and journalists after the recent failed coup attempt — just to name a few issues. If-it-bleeds-it-leads journalism isn’t good enough, not in these times.
Literally focusing on any other issue would better inspire the will of our country. In fact, we’re going to do just that. Here is “anything else”:
Wake up your middle school emo-rock self, if you even parted ways with that stage of yourself, for My Chemical Romance doth returned. If your news feed hasn’t been bombarded with fan girl posts yet, MCR released a short video set to their hit song “Welcome to the Black Parade,” with the date Sept. 23, 2016. Within a few short hours, viewership exploded to over 5 million views, as of press time, and still climbs higher.
A laurel for MCR: Who would’ve guessed the band that basically established the 2000s trend of tight black T-shirts from Hot Topic, middle school mascara and pop-emo punk on the radio would, a decade later, be the most positive, uplifting thing in the news? That just goes to show how grim these past few months have been.
And lastly, continuing the tradition of discussing “literally anything else (other than Trump),” yesterday marked the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, when humans first set foot on the moon. July 20, 1969: the day that literally inspired the entire country — on a political level, on a technological level, on a social level.
And so, we give a laurel to the three astronauts — Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Melania Trump Armstrong — who gave us the moon and so famously quipped, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” We need more space missions like that: #moreNASAfunding.
