Acclaim
To Taylor Swift, for her recent success at the Country Music Awards. Taylor came away with wins in four out of the twelve award categories, including the coveted Entertainer of the Year honor. Now many of you probably think I’ve gone off the deep end, giving my acclaim to any annoying musician whose fans are mostly teenage girls and overweight middle-aged men who are unhappy with their atrocious or non-existent wives. And yes, I’m aware she’s a horrible singer when she preforms live. But what she has done is marketed herself well and made a name for herself in the process. So even if you don’t like her and you don’t like her music, you can’t deny that she’s hugely successful and thus should be acclaimed for her ability to be marketable.
Disdain
To UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), which recently declared that poor nutrition is killing children globally, primarily in Africa and Asia. Wow, great. Instead of thinking of innovative ways to fix the problem that has existed for centuries, they are spending their time researching and determining things we already knew. If that’s not a good use of UN funds, I don’t know what is.
Acclaim
To Microsoft, for banning nearly 1 million people from Xbox Live for modifying their systems in order to play a pirated version of Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. While I do believe that software is underdeveloped and overpriced, thus welcoming piracy, I have to give my acclaim to Microsoft for banning idiots who are too stupid to realize that trying to play pirated games online is a great way to get caught. Safeguards against such activities have been in place for years, and those who think they won’t get caught are ignorant and therefore deserve to be banned. Nice work Microsoft.
Disdain
To Washington governor Christine Gregoire, whose $9 billion budget deficit was fixed recently by the Legislature, so that she could stand by as another $2 billion we didn’t have were spent, creating yet another deficit. Now she fears that such financial shortcomings could affect “social services, health care, [and] corrections.” Yeah, perhaps if we had elected the competent gubernatorial candidate in 2008, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Next time you run for public office, make sure you can actually do your job. And don’t deny deficits that you CAUSED as part or your campaign. That’s called misinformation, and it’s generally frowned upon.
Acclaim
To McDonald’s, for expanding their business, which is a deviation from the current pattern of downsizing and consolidating in our weak economy. McDonald’s is adding 1,000 stores in the US and internationally, and plans to renovate as many as 2,300 existing locations. I say more power to McDonald’s, because seeing a successful company who has the money to expand these days is something of a rarity, and shows that their business strategy is obviously working. Or maybe it just shows that no matter how bad the economy is, Americans enjoy eating just a little bit more than they enjoy money.
Exreality 