Real Life Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Bubbanitro: How is Rasputin not on here? Seriously.

Mary Shrieks: I would consider the country of Denmark's stand against the Nazi Regime - and the subsequent survival of nearly all the Jewish population - to be one of the absolute Crowning Moments of Awesome in WWII. Any disagreements?

Sciatrix: I removed the bit about Caesar's "the die is cast" being a mistranslation and the real translation being along the lines of "let the die be cast." The actual words are alea iacta est, which does in fact literally mean "the die is cast." The latter translation would require the subjunctive and be rendered "alea iacta sit" and moreover removes Caesar's entire point.

Furry Kef: A little note on "alea iacta est": a more idiomatic translation is "The die has been cast." Word for word, it does literally say "The die is cast", but "iacta est" is the passive perfect, which corresponds to "was Xed/has been Xed" in English. The passive present ("is Xed") would be "alea iacitur".

Gattsuru: Can someone explain what's supposed to be so ballsy about Colbert's standup routine? It was relatively funny for Colbert, but making fun of Republicans is not exactly an effort likely to get the man canned or uninvited. I mean, the next act at the dinner was Bush and a Bush impersonator making fun of the President.

Kizor: The wiki ate my response, which referenced Dr. Strangelove and Chaplin's The Great Dictator, looked into the medieval tradition of court jesters and compared his reception to a B-29 over Tokyo. Arsemongers.

Donraj: Yeah, ah, I like Colbert and all, but from what I remember of that appearance Bush was actually taking the whole thing in pretty good humor.

Mark Lungo: Gattsuru, I'll try to keep my answer as non-partisan as possible, because this is not a political site. Yes, it's common for comics at the Correspondent's Association Dinner to make gentle, mild fun of the President, kind of like a celebrity roast. Colbert wasn't interested in doing that. His criticisms of Bush's policies, while couched in humor, were unexpectedly barbed and potent. Those who support Colbert believe that he was speaking truth to power in a way that few other American comics would dare. The fact that his speech was so controversial among Bush supporters seems to confirm this. Of course, your mileage may vary...

Unknown Troper: And it deserves mentioning, as a performer, the fact that he kept going to the sound of no one laughing indicates fearlessness to an insane degree.

Coolnut: After careful consideration, I decided to pull the example. First, well, it's too... trite. When you can find criticisms of the President (both honest and undeserved, barbed or not) on the Internet faster than you can find porn, maybe it isn't too awesome (anymore). "Okay, so another person rips the Prez a new one! Hur, hur, hur!" I have my criticisms as well, but, well... um, yeah.

Second, I think for a political entry, especially for a recent incident, "respect" is the key word here. For the McCain entry, for example, I can at least respect what he argued against torture, even if I disagree with him, considering what he went through during Vietnam. That is CMOA in my book. Colbert doesn't score (or, to be fair, lose) anything with me — and probably a lot of people.

Third, I think it stepped on juuust a few too many toes here. Besides, with so many real-life CMOA examples, I think we can explore a bit further in history, I think we all agree. No need to bring out so many, so hot-button (and to this troper, now so boring) political activity.

(And sorry for messing around with the David Beckham entry, I thought there was a separate sports section like I Am Not Making This Up.)

Unknown Troper: All right, I can accept that. I added a mention of Harriet Tubman's narcolepsy to her entry.

Mark Z: That remark from Nancy Pelosi may be the most awesome thing she has ever done, but bland politician-speak, addressed not to the target of the criticism but to what she cynically regards as her base, is not sufficient to crown one with awesome.

wia: The "The guard dies, it never surrenders" quote was made up by the french newspapers. Fine-sounding as the non-"merde" version is, they had just lost the battle... and did surrender at the time... so even if it *was* their words, it wouldn't be a moment of awsome - it was just someone being unjustifiably bombastic. ((Would anyone have cared what the Spartans said at Thermopylae if they'd turned tail and ran instead of fighting to the death?)).

I also take exception to the definition of David Backham's career. Having watched a decent number of Manchester United matches whilst he was still there, I can confidently say he wasn't utter crap apart from those two moments - he was solid, but not the world-beater his reputation claimed he was. I'd have to say that, hype aside, he was the weakest of the first-choice midfielders (Against Giggs, Keane and Scholes) for most of his career, but considering the quality of his teammates, that's not such a bad thing.

Kinitawowi: Probably actually terrible phrasing on my part, for which I apologise - I meant before Wimbledon and after Greece, not all time excluding those two. Those two Crowning Moments bookended the great phase - and yeah, anybody alongside Giggs, Keane and Scholes is going to look quite ordinary. (I've been a Manchester United fan ever since I knew what football was, and I'm pragmatic enough to know that he was very ordinary in his earliest matches and too full of his ego in his latest...)

whitetigah: I removed a pot-holed link about halfway down the page (see edit history for details) since it was messing up the page.

It's not really a question, just a thought, something to think on. A lot of people are on this list for the number of people they killed in wars. So how come serial killers also aren't on this list? EDIT: No, I'm absolutely NOT condoning or applauding serial killing. I'm just making a rhetorical point.

FURTHER EDIT: After thinking it over myself, I realised the answer myself: The war heroes had great courage. They did not want to be doing what they were doing, and risked their own lives to do it, and secured freedom for their countries. I'm sorry to anyone whose relative is or was a war hero. I wasn't thinking; I apologize.

MegaTroopX: A division of the page by topic (Politics, Warfare, Sports, etc.) might make it flow a little better.

Rogue 7: OK, did someone delete half the page? I'd restore it, but I'm far too lazy.

Idle Dandy: Could we maybe split this page into sections for politics, sports, etc.? That way somebody (like say, me) who doesn't think Complaining About Politicians You Don't Like is automatically awesome can skip that section?

Cambias: The 9/11 terrorists have got to go. Overcoming unarmed passengers and flight attendants is hardly awesome, nor is murdering thousands of unsuspecting innocents. This is literally (no Godwin) like admiring how efficiently the Nazis ran the Holocaust.

Mipp: It's gone. Flamebait without a doubt, and in bad taste at the very least. I slightly modified the preceeding entry so it could stand on it's own.

Neko Incardine: I would argue that, not the terrorists themselves, but the people on United 13 who fought them off and brought the plane down to (quite potentially) save the life of the President (not really due to his at the time location, but this wasn't known at the time) deserve a very large CMOA for one massive real-life Heroic Sacrifice.

Coolnut: Whoever put that Olbermann (sp?) bit up, I just want to note: The rantings of a hyperpartisan loudmouth lunatic this side of O'Reilly does not belong here. Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment, people.

Would the Giles Corey example be a Facing The Bullets One Liner? —Document N

Andrew: I deleted two entries. First, the "special comments" sub-point under my Keith Olbermann entry. We've went back-and-forth about Olbermann's special comments on this page. I'm a fan, but people raise legit points against them, and I don't want to spark that flame war. Again.

Second, I took out the "senior citizen commits felony" point. I'm all for mocking the customer service departments of corporations, especially cable companies, but taking a hammer to an innocent employee's computer isn't awesome by any stretch of the imagination.

theorc Pulled some flamebait/bashing from the Reagan example. I don't like the guy either, but whoever did it is just trying to start a fight.

Is most of the stuff under Obama's nomination really necessary? I'm not saying *all* of it should go (both Obama's nomination and Mc Cain's response are CMO As to me), but a lot of it on top of that seems to be thinly veiled fan-wanking or Bush/Republican/etc.-bashing.

Honore DB: Deleted

The Richard B. Russell Federal Office Building in Atlanta Georgia was decorated with various works of "art" (payed for by seized money). During a clean up of the building, one piece (A damaged canvas with random paint) was mistaken for a tarp and thrown away.

My...guess...is that the editor hates both federal buildings and modern art, and considers this mutual embarrassment a crowning moment for reality, or the editor's ideology, or something. Probably belongs on Real Life, if that exists.

Can we get the Saturn V picture from the main CMOA page here? I mean, all the examples at the top of the page are about space exploration!

Crowbar: I'm surprised Ned Kelly hasn't been mentioned. Are there no Australian tropers?

Syckls: Deleted

Marvin Heemeyer- a humble muffler repair man who, after getting into a financial dispute with the local zoning committee, he turned an ordinary bulldozer into a fully armed and armored death tank (christened "The Killdozer" in the media) and went on a unstoppable rampage. He killed himself at the end, but that doesn't change the fact that this guy had balls of epic proportions.
- If it weren't for the whole acing himself thing, Heemeyer would be the Orkiest guy who ever lived. The Killdozer even had mounted machineguns. More Dakka!
  - The police were so desperate to take this guy down-and so outgunned-that the police chief was seriously considering calling in the Air National Guard for the first air-strike ever executed against a target on U.S. soil.

This man did millions of dollars of damage and put hundreds of innocent lives in danger. It was only due to luck and the incredible efforts of emergency responders that he was the only person killed by his rampage. This sort of thing takes not "balls of epic proportions," but a sick and twisted mind.

Lord Incompetent: What's wrong with criminals having Crowning Moments of Awesome? We give them out to villains.

JadeEyed 1: Deleted part of the response to the entry about the Wright Bros.—specifically, the part about the Canadian aircraft "Silver Dart". The Silver Dart didn't make its first flight until five years after the Wright Bros. flight; there's no way it was a contender for completion that same year. (Plus, it wasn't a purely Canadian project: the team that designed the craft consisted of both Canadians and Americans.) Anyone have an idea for a better "first flight" mention?

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