An annual tradition for over a decade! This is my list of ridiculous people from 2015 (so far). If you're not named and disappointed, you're not a loser (wait a minute...), just not quite ridiculous enough in those categories; the competition was especially stiff (limp?) this year. Pass me one of those rolls, please:
- The Greasy Gravy Award for oily publicity that makes the main dish inedible goes to the leadership of the Russian Athletics Federation for throwing all of its athletes under the doping bus... now and when it mistreated them in the past. Meanwhile, there will be no effective change in management, nor of the ridiculous overreaction by WADA that does not have athlete health as its first and only priority.
- The Red-Tide Oyster Stuffing Award for carelessly poisoning an otherwise tasty dish goes to the sad and/or rabid puppies who found a tiny thing to complain about and ignored multiple dancing elephants in the room.
- The Broken Wishbone Award for shattering dreams goes to American governors (and a few congresscritters) who know nothing of history... or of compassion. And, more to the point, of their own familial history.
- The Golden Gristle Award for assertions far too difficult to digest (and usually stuck in one's teeth) goes to the entire Heffalump presidential candidate pool, with a special shout-out to the thing on Trump's head. And we still have nearly a year more of this crap before the election (Jackasses, you're not much better).
- The Crabapple Pie Award for marketing something sour as something sweet goes to the industrial leadership of the entertainment industry for utterly forgetting about the human element that makes up — and is the purpose of — entertainment, ranging from H'wood's treatment of women to the entire Western industry's treatment of "persons of color" (which is quotated because I'm not "entitled" to be their advocate, despite my three-decade-long appreciation for that particular actor/comedian/entertainer, as I'm not one myself... an argument for another time).
- The Wilted Salad Award for the one part of the meal that's supposed to be "good for you," but is instead rather past its sell-by date, goes to the anti-processed-food movement for its constant rhetorical distortion of reality that masks its actual, worthwhile concerns. All modern food is "genetically modified organisms" in that at minimum it results from selective breeding over centuries, and all food except salt is "organic" in that it consists of mixtures and compounds based on carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The distrust of science in the lab (instead of trial and error, however scientifically informed, in the field) so seriously undermines the movement's message that it's more harmful than helpful... especially when advocates of blanket restrictions proudly proclaim that "Im [sic] not a scientist and not an authority on agriculture," disturbingly reminiscent of the Know-Nothings (at the same time some of their proposed practices, such as inadequate clearning and sterilization and certain pest control, encourage the spread of disease).
- The Brussels Sprout Award for stinky, slimy, overcooked, gentrified little cabbages goes to "law and order" advocates who encourage law enforcement systems to focus on "undesireables" and property crimes against the Establishment with consequences predictable in their nature if not their detail. When you treat a substantial portion of your citizenry as less than full citizens on the basis of their ancestry, you already have (and you're inviting more) problems.
- The Dried-Out Breastmeat Award for overcooking the books goes to Sepp Blatter and the rest of the senior leadership at FIFA... if only because they made John Oliver chug a Bud Light Lime (which, despite his highly competent technique, he could not finish).
- The Rancid Drumstick Award for something that should be edible, but isn't, goes to Vladimir Putin, leader of the (purportedly) post-Soviet Russia, who seems to be trying his best to be the sort of clown-like dictator sitting in Moscow often depicted in English-language fiction and film of the fifties through seventies... when his original remit under Sobchek and Yeltsin was as a reformer, even if now he's an antagonist for Rocky & Bullwinkle.