Thursday, January 28, 2010

State of the Union reaction; Greg Oden's dirty pictures; and where is Chuck Norris?

Your day according to Google: On the day after President Obama's State of the Union address, one would think the top search term would relate to the recovery act, the jobs plan, Wall Street bonuses or small business loans.

Instead, it's about a basketball player's penis.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that we're so easily distracted from matters of grave import in the United States; even when the political mood is sour and there is unrest across these fruited plains, Americans are itching to focus their belligerent attention on whichever celebrity happens to screw up at any given moment. And this moment belongs to Portland Trailblazers' Greg Oden, whose totally full-Monty photos reveal even more than the NBA shorts of the late 1980s.

Not until one flips through searches about Toyota's recall of thousands of vehicles and inquiries about school closures in rural New England does one finally land on reaction to Obama's speech. As a matter of public service, allow dscriber to boil it down to the most relevant point of the long speech: "Remember this -- I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is," Obama said. "Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what's necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what's best for the next generation."

The reaction was total silence, which underscored the point perfectly.

Elsewhere in America, WWE wrestlers Chris Jericho and Greg "Hurricane" Helms were arrested for public drunkenness in Kentucky, but the newsworthiness of the item was that two drunken wrestlers didn't cause any mayhem -- in their mug shots, the two look pretty happy and satisfied with their night on the town. Even more of a pleasant surprise is the popularity of the search string, "Where is Chuck Norris?" Type it into Google and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

Today is the 24th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger explosion, and at the bottom of the list of popular searches, crawling in at No. 20 is the lonesome phrase "iPad a disappointment."

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About this dscriber.com column: Like a horoscope, but applicable to anyone with an Internet connection, Daily Cup O'Google reaches into the collective consciousness of frequently googled search terms each morning to predict, at a glance, what conversations will dominate your day and shape the 24-hour news cycle.

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