Red Couch Report

When I called for a World Cup of Stupidity, you probably thought I was joking. You may have looked at other jokes within the same article and thought “Oh, I guess he’s just kidding here as well.”

No. In fact, I have only ever sometimes been any more serious than I was when I said that. You heard me.

If there is one thing that unites us as a species, it is our stupidity. Wherever there are people, something is stupid. In any culture, there is a special flavour of stupid. For any region, there is a local brand of stupid. For any religion, any profession, any philosophy, there is a unique and special subspecies of stupid.

Genius is rare and fleeting. The opposite, however, remains consistent and widespread. We are all idiots from time to time. It unites us. It makes us laugh. It is the very essence of humanity.

I am human; hear me dumb.

A couple of days ago, I was walking my dog when a good friend of mine texted me that he had just seen a story on CNN about professor James Tracy and his theory that the Sandy Hook massacre never actually happened. Apparently, it was a conspiracy by the Obama elite to take away Americans’ guns. Of course it was. And isn’t he so courageous to tell us about it?

As a tenured professor with the academic powerhouse that is Florida Atlantic University, his argument got more than its share of attention. While so many comments from tenured professors get dismissed within the media as ramblings from the “liberal elite,” Mr. Tracy is in no danger of being branded either liberal or elite, and hence immune to such attacks. Nothing like a wild conspiracy theory to prop up an otherwise unremarkable career.

NASA is certain that the world will not end on December 21^st. In fact, they’re so sure that they have already produced a video titled “Why the world didn’t end yesterday.” The funny thing is that someone already leaked it, as if next weekend might somehow be too late. Hmm.

But in truth, the folks at NASA make a good argument. The Mayan calendar is more like an odometer than a novel. Once you get to the end, the story’s not over, but instead it can just roll over and start again. The end is not actually the end.

The planets will not align to create some gravitational slingshot which launches us into deep space. The magnetic poles are not about to abruptly shift. There is no reason to expect a solar super-storm and no asteroid is whipping through space with our name on it.

For those of you who continue to doubt the dangers of a zombie apocalypse, consider the following story. 26-year-old Jared Gurman of Long Island was arrested this week on a charge of attempted murder after shooting his girlfriend in the back. And the argument which led to this near-fatal tragedy? It was about AMC’s The Walking Dead.

It seems that Gurman was quite adamant that a zombie apocalypse is not only scientifically possible, but in fact only a military mishap away from reality. His girlfriend, 27-year-old Jessica Gelderman, doubted the scientific merit of his claim. “She felt,” says Nassau County Det. Ray Cote, “that it was ridiculous.”