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That makes sense. Whatever the reason, though, it just shouldn't happen. Somebody messed up.

Speaking as someone who is anti-death penalty, I don't think it's any more racist than the rest of the justice system. Of course it's very racist--I'm just saying, I don't think taking out the death penalty would make the system much less racist overall. You'd just have more minorities locked up for life instead of on death row. So I think you can be pro death penalty with the qualification that it needs to be carried out better. In practice, though, people who are pro death penalty almost always are very racist. I think it's because they also tend to be very gung ho about the justice system, and eager to lock people up, in general. That's the real problem. So again, pro death penalty people aren't necessarily racist, but the vast majority are.

As much as I hate to agree with this, I have to admit that titling the episode "The New Guy," and saying "Will Brian’s new character piss off Gerry? You’ll have to tune in to find out!" then NOT having Brian's new character appear anywhere in the episode, is a pretty asshole thing to do. I mean it's fine if you didn't get to that part in the episode, but don't tease us like that if you're not going to deliver. Because I did tune in, and I didn't find out. I still love the podcast, but I don't know what you guys were thinking.

I know for a fact that he has expressed such subtlety IN THIS VERY EPISODE, where he mentioned that there was the one-line answer of "Yes it's racist" that he would use on the tumblr, but they were also having the more nuanced discussion. I noticed two parts where Andrew mentioned that imitating accents didn't always have to be racist. And because I am just that petty, I even went back and checked: he said it once at about 6:30, and once more at about 10:30. Did you even properly listen to the podcast, or did you just skim through it assuming you would disagree with everything? OK, I apologize. I guess my mind had just naturally followed the link Shariq made between your first paragraph (about "copying accents" to be understood in a Mexican restaurant) and the things you were saying here. But I still think you're missing the point. Yes, there are regional differences in dialects when we talk about things like reggae lyrics and poetry written by people with Jamaican accents, for example. You give examples where the words are literally different. No one would say you have to change the words to not be racist. It's when you start trying to copy the accent of "those people" that you can get into trouble. Now if you are a white person who genuinely loves the culture, and wants to be more authentic... hey, it's probably that patronizing liberal racism which is not the worst kind of racism in the world. But it's still bad, so you should probably not do it. And you have to ask yourself, what is gained by trying to sound EXACTLY like the person who wrote it? OK, so you need to say local expressions or slang if they are literally part of the text, and you need to adjust your rhythm to fit the song if they are lyrics and you're performing or singing along. But besides that, what reason is there to not use your own normal way of speech? A little nitpick: believe me, there are plenty of pretentious white people out there who like to try and read Beowulf in what they think is an "Old English" accent. But there is still a patronizing quality to the way people do it when they read things like slave narratives, especially when you can tell they're just people who are completely uneducated about the way the author really would have talked, and are just repeating tired old stereotypes. Even if they are educated, and going out of their way to make it as authentic as possible, they are still kinda racist and very very wack.

Well, it does at least sound plausible. Like maybe there could be some sort of technology, that we haven't developed yet, that would use them. If you are more educated in the science behind it, that does make it less believable but for most people it sounds plausible because most people don't know enough about how microprocessors work. And it at least makes sense that this technology, if it existed, would be useful and profitable. In the movie, you can't even wrap your head around what the technology is supposed to do. It makes lasers? But it's supposed to be for information technology? But they have a gun that is clearly designed to use them as a weapon of mass destruction? But it's used for satellites? But it's so powerful that it blows up satellites? What the fuck is this? I'm not saying the book is great, by any means. But I think it does what does pretty well, and would say the same for most of Crichton's novels up till the mid-90s. They're hardly classic literature, but they work well as entertaining pulp. Whereas this movie is just a complete train wreck.

Am I the only one who read the novel? I thought there would be more people. I mean it was a bestseller. The book had many flaws (the biggest one being a stupid ending) but it did a very good job of building suspense. It really had you on the edge of your seat, wondering what they would eventually find. The movie couldn't even accomplish that because it just made no sense. How can you be scared or tense about what's coming when you don't even get what's going on? Also this movie (and the book, and popular culture in general) greatly exaggerates the ability of gorillas to communicate via sign language. It is extremely stilted compared to what humans can do. Apes that have been brought up and constantly taught sign language from birth can learn 100, maybe 200 different words and have almost no understanding of grammar. Whereas a typical human adult nows more than 50,000 words, and has mastered countless rules of grammar, syntax, and intonation that allows almost infinite shades of meaning and subtlety. It's not even that humans are smart. We have structures in our brain specifically designed for language that other animals simply do not. So to look at apes and say they can do language is like looking at the world's best human high jumpers and saying they can fly.

Saying Spanish words and making an effort to use standard Spanish pronunciation is completely different from mimicking the way other people speak English. Especially, copying the way foreigners make mistakes as they struggle to speak English properly. When you are already making fun of them. And it's not like Andrew said mimicking accents was 100% always racist. He said that there is clearly a non-racist way to do this, and a racist way to do this. And he pointed out, correctly, that what they are doing has a lot of potential to be racist. Like I said, they're already making fun of them so it can get racist very easily. Even if this guy isn't being racist, I'll bet you anything that some of his coworkers are. Because once you open the door to something like this, racists see it as their big chance to just let loose. The Caribbean thing, Shariq covered well enough so I have nothing to add. This is true, although I don't know if anyone said that mocking southerners is ALWAYS a class thing. But it tends to primarily be that, and the caller specifically said "redneck voices" which strongly implies mocking them as being dumb, lower-class, etc. I think there might be times where copying accents wouldn't be racist, but you clearly don't understand what those situations are.

Betsy absolutely killed it in this one.

I would love to listen to a whole podcast that is just Tim Meadows telling Chris Rock stories, preferably with him doing the Chris Rock voice as much as possible.

"I'm naming all these Talking Heads, but I don't see any."

Just because they're not fighting, it doesn't mean that "nothing's happening." Pen & paper RPGs aren't supposed to be about constantly battling enemies the way video game RPGs are. They can be, if you specifically choose a game format that's like that, but they aren't like that by default. A campaign can literally have no fighting in it if the DM and players carry it out that way. But whatever the game, it works better when the fighting is natural and appropriate to the situation. Since entering the tower they are in a new, unfamiliar environment where the enemies are far too strong to defeat on their own. So it is logical that they would be avoiding combat, especially since they gain almost nothing by killing collectors or those big clockwork machines. This part has therefore focused more on exploration, and the "action" has involved evading enemies more than fighting them. You are of course entitled to your opinions but I have enjoyed this part of the game more than anything up to now, I think. Hearing about all the fucked-up stuff in this tower that Sark cooked up has been fascinating. And for the most part, I don't care if they take their time because while I like the story I enjoy listening to them riff and make jokes with each other more. I think it is good that you voiced your criticism in a constructive way, Corky, but I think most of us disagree with it. Maybe not, but I know that I disagree with it.

As further proof that badminton is a wack sport: it is actually a rule that the referee can stop the game, and invalidate the current point, if the shuttlecock is going too fast and he or she can't see it.

There are actually a lot of people like that--people who are extremely gifted in one area like science or economics or something, but absolutely terrible at everything related to ordinary everyday life.

What are you talking about? He was a PAID intern, and if anything the problem is that he world TOO well for the show and they don't know how to replace him. And he has already said he wants to do "man on the street" interviews for the show again. Wait, is this a joke where you're intentionally getting everything wrong? If it is, and I didn't get it, sorry.

Richard Pryor may not have starred in the movie but he co-wrote the screenplay with Mel Brooks. According to Brooks, Pryor most enjoyed writing for Mongo. The line "Mongo only pawn in game of life" was all Richard Pryor. That is so awesome.

6 minutes in: Maria Bamford sounds like me the first time I heard James's Leykis impression.

This would be a great entry in the "so stupid and crazy it's awesome" category like the Fast & Furious and Crank movies.

That link is one of the most depressing things I have seen in a long time. As terrible as I think rape culture and the legal system are, they still manage to sink to new lows.

Number one is just that you're not allowed to say it. I mean, in today's society very few words have the power to really shock and offend people like they used to. The n word is arguably the only one that is REALLY forbidden to say in even the most permissive circumstances. That automatically makes certain people, especially immature males, want to say it. Another reason (and I think I get this one) is that people want to be edgy and subversive. They imagine themselves as somehow becoming enlightened, and finding a way to use the word that doesn't offend people, but instead makes them think you are clever. Amazed at your ability to take all the power out of the word and instead make everyone really think about racism and see it from an angle they never had before! Accomplished through devices like deconstructing the word, using it ironically, etc. I say I get it because I also share the instinct of wanting to take things people find offensive and reexamine them. I like to try and be subversive and witty, and make people think about why things are offensive. But I know that the n word is one of the things you just don't do play around with. Because I often make myself look like an idiot and/or an asshole when I try to be subversive and mess it up. But with the n word, you're not just playing with fire, you're playing with a pile of plastic explosives. Any white person who is too dumb to understand this deserves to be considered a horrible racist. Sorry, Michael Richards.

While there are flaws in his argument, yours is worse. Because while animals and children are different on many levels, they are not different on every level. There are things we consider wrong to do to both. Just because there are things we consider acceptable with animals and not with people, that doesn't mean that EVERYTHING we consider unacceptable for humans is OK for animals. A much better argument is to explain WHY this applies to humans and not to animals. The point isn't that they should get more rights because of what they will become. The point is that sex has more potential to harm them because of what they will become. An eight year old who has sex with an adult is almost certainly going to have serious psychological issues down the line. The same can not be said for a dog or a horse.

I would say that the difference here is that the child might think they want to have sex because they are not at full capacity. But when they grow up, and look back on it, they might be seriously mentally scarred by the things they did when they understand them on a deeper level. The same can not be said for an animal. I don't think an animal will ever look back on something it has done sexually and feel ashamed, humiliated, or used. This is why sex is put in a separate category than other actions--it carries a lot of emotional and psychological baggage which means sex can have serious consequences that are not apparent when we do the act itself. So with humans there are some very serious consequences that do not apply from the animal's side of things. I guess the strongest argument against bestiality would be that you might be exposing them to health risks they're not aware of? But then I suppose if you take precaustions the health risk could be made very small. Not that I am pro-bestiality; I'm just saying that for me, it's more of a gray area where I lean towards saying it's wrong, but I can kind of see both sides of the argument... whereas sex with a child is unequivocally wrong.

I think you're giving corporate America too much credit. The idea of "blackness" and being "black enough" goes back at least to the black power movement of the 70s, when black people started to really be proud of their cultural identity. Actually I would say it goes back further than that--look at Uncle Tom's Cabin--but in the 1970s it really started to be defined in more specific terms and take more concrete forms of black people intentionally asserting their independence from white American culture. For example, this is when it became common for "black names" to be different from "white names" (or "normal names" as the racist white culture would put it). Corporate America certainly did a good job of subverting the idea of "blackness" and changing it to fit their agenda, though. And I would agree that the 90s is when this really started in earnest.

You're probably right! When you think of it that way it's actually kind of a clever idea. Unfortunately the basic premise doesn't work for this character and it is executed terribly, but in a comedy with better writing it could have been good. Maybe this is one of those jokes that Paul Hogan "punched up" in his rewrite.

For someone who claims not to focus on intent, you sure do spend a lot of time talking about intent in that second paragraph. I do get what you're talking about though. I do think that intent matters--it's just that it's very easy to make mistakes when it comes to intent, even when talking about yourself. I think it's important to be honest with yourself and make sure you're doing this to try and make yourself a better person, not just make yourself look like a better person to other white people. Also it is possible to have good intentions about something but also have not-so-good intentions at the same time, and tell yourself you are doing it for the good reasons when really those are rationalizations. It's not up to us to decide what another person's intent is, but having good intentions is a part of being a good person. Along with being open-minded, making a genuine effort to learn, and being able to admit when you've made a mistake so you can correct it and move on. The problem is that many people make is thinking intention is ALL that matters, and using that to try and defend yourself when you do something racist. And it's like, no, it's good that you at least have good intentions but that doesn't excuse you from having to learn and grow like the rest of us.

Brian's character is violent and aggressive, not suicidal.