Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

My "extended summer vacation" has been cut short by a recent, albeit short-lived, spike in interest in Ethnic Avenue and a smattering of complaints from somewhat loyal readers (mostly lurkers). It doesn’t take much encouragement to get me to start talking shit again.

Frankly, it took a fair amount of restraint to not comment on some of the past two months’ happenings–and, as you know, there were some good ones. Among them:

Mel Gibson Goes Ballistic and Racist (Again)

I’ve never liked Mel Gibson, but I think most people did, until he pulled a couple of public stunts a few years ago that made him seem kinda, sorta racist—at least anti-Semitic. A couple of weeks ago, when things finally started to blow over, his Octomom-looking ex-wife released some tapes where he sounds like a total asshole. Don’t get me wrong: anybody can sound like a hysterical psychopath in the middle of screaming at this wife. The problem, for Mel Gibson, is that he punctuated nearly every insult with some seemingly unrelated racist footnote.

The Tea Party and Godwin’s Law

The brain-dead conservative mob known as the Tea Party is the gift that keeps on giving. I can’t even count the number of potential blog-post topics these geniuses have unwittingly provided over the past two months—mostly grounded in Godwin’s Law.

Reductio ad Hitlerum (Godwin’s Law): the sarcastic observation that, given enough time, all discussions —regardless of topic or scope —inevitably wind up being about Hitler and the Nazis.

Source: wikipedia.org

The World Cup

There’s nothing like a meeting of 30-something nations to provide an ample supply of international hilarity and foreigner antics. For as long they were in the contest, I—like many Americans—was praying for the U.S. team to win, against all odds. Imagine the delicious slap in the face, to the world, it would have been for America to win at a sport we couldn’t be more casual about collectively. Call it hate, if you must, but America’s in desperate need of a hubristic ego boost these days.

Lebron James and his “Decision”

Nothing was more tempting than Lebron James’s “decision.” Even if you know nothing about basketball, you vaguely know who “King” James is. And, his free agency—and the question of whether Cleveland was too much of a shithole to stay in, even for boatloads of money—became the subject of every news story for a hot minute, as he dragged out the decision of which team he would grace with his basketball skills next season. To make things even worse, once-great, respectable cities like New York condescended themselves to look ridiculous by publicly imploring him to join their team, with expensive PR campaigns and public statements from prominent residents (even the mayor). It was disgusting and embarrassing for everyone involved.

Barf. This is one time I was especially glad that my city and team not only won the championship, but mostly kept its dignity intact (ethnic championship rioters notwithstanding).

That’s just the beginning of the list. “LiLo” (what they’re calling Lindsay Lohan these days) is going to jail. Sarah Palin compared herself to William Shakespeare. Joe Biden put the blue-collar smackdown on some frozen-custard salesman.

So, for now, I’ve decided to reactive the Avenue by periodically chiming in on this and other stuff. In exchange, I ask you to periodically chime in (i.e., stop lurking). If you want to know when new stuff is posted, subscribe using the “Get E-mail Updates” form in the left column. It’s easy (be sure to verify your account via e-mail) and spam-free. Be sure to check the twitter feed in the right column for mini-updates, comments, and links. Or, better yet, if you’re on twitter, follow Ethnic Avenue.

I’ll probably be making some changes to the site (mostly content-related, not-so-much visually), so feel free to speak up about that too.

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