On Runaway Brides and the Psychobable Legion...
I have refrained from writing anything about this until now because I originally divined that something about the story of Jennifer Wilbanks did not add up. I also didn't give a rat's behind about the story either, since I've become immune to all this news about missing women and little girls. Sad truth to tell, it's becoming easier to ignore since it seems to be an everday occurrance here in the south. It's Man Bites Dog.
However, in the case of Ms. Wilbanks, what makes the story even more annyoing is because the media considers it sexy: pretty woman, girl next door, seems about to get everything a woman could want from the nice-guy husband from a prominent family to the Cindarella-600-guest-wedding. And then she just dropped off the face of the planet.
I figured out that someting wasn't right just as soon as the fiance got on TV to make his appeal to the public for help.
Jennifer Wilbanks represents a sizeable minority here in the south. One that is easy to find in just about every town. They're so common as to outnumber kudzu, in some parts.
Jennifer is a victim (God, how I wish I didn't need to say that) of that segment of Southern Society that still believes in appearances, and that appearances trump everything.
Okay, her fiance is obviously a nice guy, but he's also about as interesting as toast. There's nothing about him that doesn't smell of church and "Aw-shucks-golly-gee" Opie-Taylor-ism.
Guys like him, from prominent families who have to keep up appearances, have two major issues just simmering under the surface: a) they're sexually repressed, and b) check everything they do with their pastor before they do it. He's a dweeb. He also seems the type to invite the pastor over from dinner every goddamned night, seemingly attached to the hip to his spiritual leader. Her life would be a daily hell of pollyanna husband and the microscope of his pastor and family.
Okay, she was going to have the spectacular wedding, but that was more of a display for the family than it was for her. Once one reaches a certain stratum of polite south'ren society, one is expected to throw elegant galas at weddings and such. Complete with lawn jockeys and mint julips. Tradition dies hard, even the more ridiculous ones. And it would have been more of a trophy wedding for her husband than it was for her. Such events are intended to reinforce someone's social status here, letting everyone know that so-and-so is a player. The purpose was not to join two people in holy wedlock, but to give the who's-who of Georgia society an excuse to get together and play Tara.
Okay, she was wrong for doing what she did. After all, she could have easily spoken up and let someone know how she felt. Then again, women here are not especially encouraged to speak up. I can easily see how peer pressure, the pressure from her family and her fiance, could have driven this woman to accept the ring and then conspired to keep her from expressing her doubts. Here again, once you reach a certain stratum of society a woman is expected to be a dutiful wife, in all respects, and then shut the heck up.
So, I can see why Jennifer Wilbanks escaped a fate worse than death: she was about to be sentenced to life as a dilligent southern wife, deferential to her dweeby-but-wealthy husband, to spit out children and sit on the church board, the PTA and the Executive Committe of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Doors would be opened for her by her social-climbing new family, whether she wanted them opened or not, and she would be pushed through them against her will. Her image would have to be spotless and squeaky clean in order to protect her husband's reputation. Her reputation means diddly squat in those circles so long as none of the dirt gets on hubby. And she would be expected to do all of this when she wasn't flinging fried chicken and grits or secretly buying sex toys or having an illicit online affair because her husband is a dead fish in the sack.
Just look at how the family closed ranks around her. Yes, I know that is expected, but these people built a veritible fortress around her. She hasn't spoken or issued a statement that I'm aware of and it's almost as if they're all perfectly capable and willing to speak for her. The poor child ain't right, ya know. They call this "protection"; what it really is, is "damage control". God forbid she gets close to a TV Camera or microphone and tells her story. They'd all be mortified.
Trust me, I actually know women like this.
So yes, despite the guilded cage, I would have run off too. What makes it newsworthy is that she's done this before which leads me to believe that she either has a serious problem or her family has been pushing this woman off on every man in town. I know women that's happened to as well. The impulse to have your daughters married off around here is every bit as powerful as the survival instinct. Occasionally parents go off the deep end. It's almost as if you are considered a failure as a parent if your daughter hasn't found herself a husband the day after high-school graduation. Again, it's all about perception.
So, in the end, if Jennifer broke any laws, then by all means prosecute her to the fullest extent.
But I can see why she did it.
Now, as for the psychobabble, which started just a soon as Jennifer turned herself in (I'm still wondering where Fox News gets a psychiatrist at 4 am to make a pat diagnosis without knowing the subject's complete medical history) the dissection began. There has been endless speculation on her motives, her state of mind, whether or not there was premeditation, the endless angst of the why's and wherefore's. There are psychic scabs to be picked at on television, you know.
My theory is just that, a theory, but I've seen the situation enough to know it exists. I don't particularly care whether or not I'm right about it either, nor do I care to have it explained to me why I should care. All I know is that what I saw on TV would cause me to run screaming into the night, too. I also think it's in pretty poor taste to do the things she did in the manner that she did, but it ain't my business. I do know that if I was Mr. Mason, I wouldn't touch the woman with a 10' pole now. I also know that Mr. Mason is so high on God that prayer and forgiveness will make everything A-fuckin'-Okay. He's mental, too. Wouldn't surprise me if he sits on her 24/7 now and then stalks her afterwards. The church-going ones are always creepy like that.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Defeat From the Jaws of Victory...
Why is it that everytime Republicans actually win something they immediately find a way to toss that victory away? It seems to me that my party has a tendency to melt down, usually in the second term of a President's reign, no less, and make it impossible to advance the agenda. In this case, it's simple overreach.
Vis-a-vis the case of the filibustered Judges, when you get 90% of what you want and the other side asks for nothing in return, you've done pretty well. In the words of the immortal Bob Dole, "Half a loaf is better than none". Especially when the loaf was free. Give it up and redirect your energy to something else --- like keeping illegal immigrants out of the country. These 10 judges may be top quality individuals, worthy appointments to the courts, but,there are at least two Supreme Court Justices who, in an act of poetic justice, are close to having their feeding tubes yanked. If you think an appointment to the Appellate Court was tough because of a stand on abortion, wait until you have to put someone forward to the Supreme Court.
The difference, though, between these 10 judicial nominees and a Supreme Court appointment is tha he public would REALLY not stand any delay in choosing a replacement SC Judge. Yes, the fanatics of the death factorty (kill 'em before they're born, kill 'em before they die on their own, let murderers and rapists roam free) will screech anyway, no matter who you appoint. But, and this is the point, you can bring heavier artillery to bear with public opinion and perception. Right now, you're getting clobbered on perception.
It also seems to me that if the democrats learned the wrong lessons about religion in the 2004 campaign, so did conservatives. I have no doubt that evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, et. al. exist in legions and they vote. I also have no doubt that they also overwhelmingly vote republican. However, it seems that some republicans (especially De Lay and Frist) have embraced that constituencies platform to the detriment of the rest of us. Yes, we do want a more just, more civilized society. Yes, we belive in God (although in varying degrees...I went to Catholic school all my life, remember?), and keep the moral code outlined in the Commandments. But whether or not those Commandments hang in a public place is a minor issue when a tin pot Korean dictator and a Persian Daffy Duck-like character with a too-tight turban threaten to turn my home into a smoking pile of self-lighting rubble.
I guess what I'm saying here is, basically, pick your fights. Right now we're doing a very bad job of it.
Social Security reform could use a boost. We have an energy plan that requires action. We've practically defanged the trial attorneys, now let's find another obstacle to progress, like the Treehuggers and EcoTerrorists (re: Sierra Club and PETA). How about getting back to cutting that budget instead of expending energy on Senate Rules changes? How about sending the Estate Tax back to the infernal abyss it crept from permanently?
There are other things you could be doing. Perhaps if you did them, when the midterm elections come in 2006 you'd have those 60 senators you need and there wouldn't be an argument over filibusters or a few judges.
Why is it that everytime Republicans actually win something they immediately find a way to toss that victory away? It seems to me that my party has a tendency to melt down, usually in the second term of a President's reign, no less, and make it impossible to advance the agenda. In this case, it's simple overreach.
Vis-a-vis the case of the filibustered Judges, when you get 90% of what you want and the other side asks for nothing in return, you've done pretty well. In the words of the immortal Bob Dole, "Half a loaf is better than none". Especially when the loaf was free. Give it up and redirect your energy to something else --- like keeping illegal immigrants out of the country. These 10 judges may be top quality individuals, worthy appointments to the courts, but,there are at least two Supreme Court Justices who, in an act of poetic justice, are close to having their feeding tubes yanked. If you think an appointment to the Appellate Court was tough because of a stand on abortion, wait until you have to put someone forward to the Supreme Court.
The difference, though, between these 10 judicial nominees and a Supreme Court appointment is tha he public would REALLY not stand any delay in choosing a replacement SC Judge. Yes, the fanatics of the death factorty (kill 'em before they're born, kill 'em before they die on their own, let murderers and rapists roam free) will screech anyway, no matter who you appoint. But, and this is the point, you can bring heavier artillery to bear with public opinion and perception. Right now, you're getting clobbered on perception.
It also seems to me that if the democrats learned the wrong lessons about religion in the 2004 campaign, so did conservatives. I have no doubt that evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, et. al. exist in legions and they vote. I also have no doubt that they also overwhelmingly vote republican. However, it seems that some republicans (especially De Lay and Frist) have embraced that constituencies platform to the detriment of the rest of us. Yes, we do want a more just, more civilized society. Yes, we belive in God (although in varying degrees...I went to Catholic school all my life, remember?), and keep the moral code outlined in the Commandments. But whether or not those Commandments hang in a public place is a minor issue when a tin pot Korean dictator and a Persian Daffy Duck-like character with a too-tight turban threaten to turn my home into a smoking pile of self-lighting rubble.
I guess what I'm saying here is, basically, pick your fights. Right now we're doing a very bad job of it.
Social Security reform could use a boost. We have an energy plan that requires action. We've practically defanged the trial attorneys, now let's find another obstacle to progress, like the Treehuggers and EcoTerrorists (re: Sierra Club and PETA). How about getting back to cutting that budget instead of expending energy on Senate Rules changes? How about sending the Estate Tax back to the infernal abyss it crept from permanently?
There are other things you could be doing. Perhaps if you did them, when the midterm elections come in 2006 you'd have those 60 senators you need and there wouldn't be an argument over filibusters or a few judges.
National ID Cards...
There's been quite a lot of talk recently about tightening up the requirements for many forms of identification in this country, in particular, driver's licenses. The reasons for tougher requirements are easy enough to list; identity theft is becoming a major problem in this cyber age, in this day and age, the 9/11 hijackers had 64 drivers licenses between them, illegal aliens often use various forms of state identification as they keys to the kingdom, to unlock state and federal largesse. Nowadays, tnaks to digital scanning and printing technologies, just laying on the shelf and waiting to be abused, counterfeiting identification documents is a boomng business.
Congress is seriously considering adding federal requirements to the acquisition of what, until now, has been an exclusive preserve of the states: the issuing of driver's licenses.
Now, hold on to your hats, because I'm about to say something you would never, ever expect me to say:
It's about good goddamn time the Fed'ral Gubmint actually got involved in this issue.
Normally, I'm not one for giving Leviathan a license (pardon the pun) to stick his nose any further under my tent flap than necessary. I feel this way about federal intrusion into my life in the same way one would regard a proctoloscope; a very distateful thing, but still one of life's minor tragedies, and very often required for practical reasons.
Now as to whether or not the feds have any standing to do this, I haven't a clue. I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but it would seem to me that if the Feds can regulate interstate commerce, and if it can be reasonably assumed that everyone issued a drivers license will eventually hit the interstate system, or drive on a road paid for or maintained by federal funds, then it stands to reason that the feds have the right to attach a new requirement to a license. Makes sense to me, anyways.
There are, of course, who decry such a thing as yet one more example of the creeping tyranny about to overtake the country. These same people also decry the creeping theocracy, the crawling advance of Big Business, the wriggling insinuation of Big Brother and the impending selling out of the country to the Rothchilds. In other words, these folks are usually nuts.
Yes, I'm willing to admit that if you gave people with the wrong intentions any information that could be used against you in any way, then we do have a serious problem. If and when that ever happens, and the government now has a list of "undesirables" they need to eliminate before turning the reigns over to Kofi Annan or Hillary or the Great International Communist Conspiracy, then in hindsight it would have been a bad idea to allow the feds to get into the driver's license game. However, let's first admit that people who take this line of thought to bed with them a) probably do have something to hide to begin with and b) are really telling you what they would do with that information if they had both it and a dose of power behind them. I remind you that to date, not one person has been prosecuted under the Patriot Act. Anyways...
When it comes to the concerns of "privacy advocates" I wonder just what it is they want to keep secret, and how important it is when compared with the problems of security and illegal immigration. Opponents of a national ID system forget that we already have one: the Social Security Number, which follows you from cradle to grave and which invades every aspect of you daily life. Thanks the SSN, the government already knows where you work, probably where you live, how much money you make, how to tax you, how to withhold for your retirement. Business uses the SSN when you apply for a loan, open an account somewhere, apply for a mortgage, when you buy insurance. One day, your SSN number will appear on your tombstone in place of your name. This way, when your banker, ISP, gas company representative, insurance agent, etc, etc, happen to be passing through the cemetary, they can comment to the other mourners just what a terrific customer you were, even if they didn't know your name. They just recognized the account number.
If it were up to democrats, your SSN would be tattooed on your forearm like a concentration camp inmate. Just to remind you of your place in the coming reign of Hillary, the Queen of Darkness, and the order of your execution.
Some of us have passports, so the government knows where you're going, where you've been and when. Having travelled through Europe extensively, I can tell you that everytime I've ever checked into a hotel, I'm immediately asked for my passport, the information on it taken down, and my presance recorded and reported to the local authorities. Now even foreigners know where I'm at and when I come and go.
And, of course, when the government is not busy hoarding our private info, and business is not busy using it for mailing lists and cross-selling opportunities, we're doing our level best to give it away anyhow.I wonder how many of you get spam, and then wonder how you got on the mailing list in the first place? Well, if your ISP isn't selling you screenname, then you're leaving electronic fingerprints behind everytime you log into the Lillian Vernon website. Or when you read the NY Times online. Or even when you buy those concert or airline tickets online. The electronic identification revolution is almost 30 years old now, and now that all of this data has been collected, at great expense, don't expect someone to just throw it away for the sake of your privacy. Maybe you should think twice about handing your credit cards over to a waiter or a cashier. Perhaps you should stop signing pettitions, cease voting, stop registering for classes at the local university.
The fact is that, right now, complete strangers already know you better than you know yourself. They know your habits, likes and dislikes, income, spending habits, musical tastes, TV viewing habits, what medications you take. Don't get mad --- you gave most of that info away by taking surveys, answering questions from telemarketers, filling in rebate coupons, taking the Pepsi Challenge. When people can be so passionately protective of their privacy when it comes to the government and then be stupid enough to voluntarily offer information thay wouldn't give to their parish priest, they have no right to complain about creeping tyranny. Creeping Marketing is every bit as pernicious.
So, at this point, when so much data is available on everyone (and much of it on the open market), and the genie canot be put back in the bottle, what's the opposition to a national ID card or a federal identity requirement for a driver's license? I mean, at least this surrender of our personal information would serve some purpose, right?
That purpose is, of course, making sure you are who you say you are. Especially if you're a young, Middle-eastern or Mexican-looking person who fits the appropriate profile: bomb-throwing religious nutcase, or alternately, blood-sucking leach.
The Feds say they want to do this to increase security and to preven these documents from falling into the hands of those who mean us harm, and quite frankly, I'm sure they mean it. Quite frankly, I'm also pretty positive that once the feds get through figuring out what they want to do (that's after the 62 lawsuits by the ACLU, the assinine descisions from at least 12 state courts, two Supreme Court Cases and the de rigeur demostrations, the thing will be so incredibly screwe up that it will a) have to be done all over again or b) fufill the worst predictions of the conspiracy nuts.
There's been quite a lot of talk recently about tightening up the requirements for many forms of identification in this country, in particular, driver's licenses. The reasons for tougher requirements are easy enough to list; identity theft is becoming a major problem in this cyber age, in this day and age, the 9/11 hijackers had 64 drivers licenses between them, illegal aliens often use various forms of state identification as they keys to the kingdom, to unlock state and federal largesse. Nowadays, tnaks to digital scanning and printing technologies, just laying on the shelf and waiting to be abused, counterfeiting identification documents is a boomng business.
Congress is seriously considering adding federal requirements to the acquisition of what, until now, has been an exclusive preserve of the states: the issuing of driver's licenses.
Now, hold on to your hats, because I'm about to say something you would never, ever expect me to say:
It's about good goddamn time the Fed'ral Gubmint actually got involved in this issue.
Normally, I'm not one for giving Leviathan a license (pardon the pun) to stick his nose any further under my tent flap than necessary. I feel this way about federal intrusion into my life in the same way one would regard a proctoloscope; a very distateful thing, but still one of life's minor tragedies, and very often required for practical reasons.
Now as to whether or not the feds have any standing to do this, I haven't a clue. I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but it would seem to me that if the Feds can regulate interstate commerce, and if it can be reasonably assumed that everyone issued a drivers license will eventually hit the interstate system, or drive on a road paid for or maintained by federal funds, then it stands to reason that the feds have the right to attach a new requirement to a license. Makes sense to me, anyways.
There are, of course, who decry such a thing as yet one more example of the creeping tyranny about to overtake the country. These same people also decry the creeping theocracy, the crawling advance of Big Business, the wriggling insinuation of Big Brother and the impending selling out of the country to the Rothchilds. In other words, these folks are usually nuts.
Yes, I'm willing to admit that if you gave people with the wrong intentions any information that could be used against you in any way, then we do have a serious problem. If and when that ever happens, and the government now has a list of "undesirables" they need to eliminate before turning the reigns over to Kofi Annan or Hillary or the Great International Communist Conspiracy, then in hindsight it would have been a bad idea to allow the feds to get into the driver's license game. However, let's first admit that people who take this line of thought to bed with them a) probably do have something to hide to begin with and b) are really telling you what they would do with that information if they had both it and a dose of power behind them. I remind you that to date, not one person has been prosecuted under the Patriot Act. Anyways...
When it comes to the concerns of "privacy advocates" I wonder just what it is they want to keep secret, and how important it is when compared with the problems of security and illegal immigration. Opponents of a national ID system forget that we already have one: the Social Security Number, which follows you from cradle to grave and which invades every aspect of you daily life. Thanks the SSN, the government already knows where you work, probably where you live, how much money you make, how to tax you, how to withhold for your retirement. Business uses the SSN when you apply for a loan, open an account somewhere, apply for a mortgage, when you buy insurance. One day, your SSN number will appear on your tombstone in place of your name. This way, when your banker, ISP, gas company representative, insurance agent, etc, etc, happen to be passing through the cemetary, they can comment to the other mourners just what a terrific customer you were, even if they didn't know your name. They just recognized the account number.
If it were up to democrats, your SSN would be tattooed on your forearm like a concentration camp inmate. Just to remind you of your place in the coming reign of Hillary, the Queen of Darkness, and the order of your execution.
Some of us have passports, so the government knows where you're going, where you've been and when. Having travelled through Europe extensively, I can tell you that everytime I've ever checked into a hotel, I'm immediately asked for my passport, the information on it taken down, and my presance recorded and reported to the local authorities. Now even foreigners know where I'm at and when I come and go.
And, of course, when the government is not busy hoarding our private info, and business is not busy using it for mailing lists and cross-selling opportunities, we're doing our level best to give it away anyhow.I wonder how many of you get spam, and then wonder how you got on the mailing list in the first place? Well, if your ISP isn't selling you screenname, then you're leaving electronic fingerprints behind everytime you log into the Lillian Vernon website. Or when you read the NY Times online. Or even when you buy those concert or airline tickets online. The electronic identification revolution is almost 30 years old now, and now that all of this data has been collected, at great expense, don't expect someone to just throw it away for the sake of your privacy. Maybe you should think twice about handing your credit cards over to a waiter or a cashier. Perhaps you should stop signing pettitions, cease voting, stop registering for classes at the local university.
The fact is that, right now, complete strangers already know you better than you know yourself. They know your habits, likes and dislikes, income, spending habits, musical tastes, TV viewing habits, what medications you take. Don't get mad --- you gave most of that info away by taking surveys, answering questions from telemarketers, filling in rebate coupons, taking the Pepsi Challenge. When people can be so passionately protective of their privacy when it comes to the government and then be stupid enough to voluntarily offer information thay wouldn't give to their parish priest, they have no right to complain about creeping tyranny. Creeping Marketing is every bit as pernicious.
So, at this point, when so much data is available on everyone (and much of it on the open market), and the genie canot be put back in the bottle, what's the opposition to a national ID card or a federal identity requirement for a driver's license? I mean, at least this surrender of our personal information would serve some purpose, right?
That purpose is, of course, making sure you are who you say you are. Especially if you're a young, Middle-eastern or Mexican-looking person who fits the appropriate profile: bomb-throwing religious nutcase, or alternately, blood-sucking leach.
The Feds say they want to do this to increase security and to preven these documents from falling into the hands of those who mean us harm, and quite frankly, I'm sure they mean it. Quite frankly, I'm also pretty positive that once the feds get through figuring out what they want to do (that's after the 62 lawsuits by the ACLU, the assinine descisions from at least 12 state courts, two Supreme Court Cases and the de rigeur demostrations, the thing will be so incredibly screwe up that it will a) have to be done all over again or b) fufill the worst predictions of the conspiracy nuts.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Git On With Yer Bad Selves... Proving once again that we all just simply take up space on this planet, blowing hot air from our rectal cavities, I submit a collection of links to various news stories, with typically witty repartee attached. For your reading pleasure:
This little blurb about Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict's Inauguration speech:
Yes, God forbid that the Pope fail to mention Muslims in a speech to Catholics. The angst over the mention of Jews in the speech once again proves what an inferiority complex Muslims still have vis-a-vis Jews. In fact, a careful examination of Islam would lead one to believe that it is basically just Judaism for the disaffected, no matter how much the Imams might protest to the contrary.
After all, don't Muslims consider themselves descended from Abraham too? Did Muslims not wholly subsume the kosher laws into their system? Did Muslims not build their holy sites in some of the same places the Jews built theirs? Don't Muslims consider themselves the chosen people as well? Get over it, Muhammed, you're Jews in everything but name but are in denial. I sugest therapy and massive doses of prozac.
Also in the "I need serious mental help" department, I give you this:
John Kerry proves that he still lives in an alternate universe because a) he believes he'll get another shot at the brass ring and b) he's still fixated on Ohio. Then again, democrats are still fixated on Florida. And Mc Carthyism. And on the vast right-wing conspiracy. And the threat of conservative theocracy doing to America what it did to Iran.
Two things to bear in mind: a) the democratic primaries in 2007-8 will be a repeat of 2004 (i.e. the candidates will fall all over themsleves to "reasssure" voters that they are not George Bush, even though Bush won't be running) and b) all the contenders will be tripping over the contradiction that while they believe in a secular vision of the United States, they're all good bible thumpers, too. These people keep focusing on minutiae and missing the big picture. you didn't lose because of your lack of religion, nor did you lose because the democratic process failed in Florida and Ohio. You lost because your platform is dated, your ideology is stale and because you can't advance a candidate that is electable.
I look forward to seeing President Rice inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.
From the "It must be a conspiracy" department, I submit this:
Yes Virginia, there is a massive conspiracy to put God back into government! I mean, just the reference to Jonestown proves it! This line of resoning reminds me of those scenes from the Silence of the Lambs movies where Hannibal Lecter can ask a series of seemingly random questions and pontificate on a variety of subjects before he can answer the question: what would this killer have for lunch?
Yes there are religious fanatics in the world. Just ask Mohammed Atta or David Koresh. And certainly, every so often the religious becomes the political, which is pretty much the history of Christianity in it's entirety. But when you scream about "extremism" and the people you (carefully) select to prove it are batier than Patrick Leahy (Communist - Vermont), you're not making your point. Then again, pardon the pun, the people who engage in this kind of nosense are preaching to the chior.
And finally, in the "Salem witch hunts did not end in the 1700's" category:
Wow, imagine people actually having the gall to insist that "unpopular" and "out of the mainstream" views have a fair hearing at a university, of all places, should happen in our day and age. It's amazing how people who scream like stuck pigs when their radical, narrowly-held views are questioned in academia and demand equal (or rather special) protection, get even louder when it's speech they don't agree with. Perhaps now that the shoe is on the other foot, and the country as a whole is becoming more conservative (a trend of the last 40 years, btw) we might actually have something approaching fair debate on a campus somewhere. That thought scares the professoriate more than anything else, people.
After all, where can an "intellectual" get paid to churn out nonsense and invent areas of educational endeavor such as gender studies, ghetto culture, the politics of the genitals, porn for extra credit, naked archeology and such and not answer to the public, the students, or the concerned citizenry? Could it be that perhaps these tiny minds are just frightened enough that their world, which revolves more around their feelings and lunatic ideas rather than the exchange of information, are afraid that someone might actually shine a light into their actvities? Could it be [ossible that he consumers of what passes for higher education might actually want to know what they're paying for? One shudders to think what might happen if people were to actually question why they're paying 40K a year for Junior and Sally to get "edumacated" and then wonder why they aren't...
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
More "Feminist Thinking"...
I know, a contradiction in terms, but, if you attend Boston University you will be graced with this little gem of higher education:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1391279/posts
The essence of human existence, broken down into one, easy-to-remember premise: the orgasm is the end-all and be-all of your purpose on this planet. The quest to achieve orgasm is the female Holy Grail, to be chased after with all the passion and gusto that formerly was reserved for your M.B.A., the corner office and the elimintion of the "Glass Ceiling".
I'm so happy I don't have a college-aged daughter. I'd have to pay for this nonsense, and she would would be tempered in an enviornment which has all of the forms of education, but none of the substance.
I know, a contradiction in terms, but, if you attend Boston University you will be graced with this little gem of higher education:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1391279/posts
The essence of human existence, broken down into one, easy-to-remember premise: the orgasm is the end-all and be-all of your purpose on this planet. The quest to achieve orgasm is the female Holy Grail, to be chased after with all the passion and gusto that formerly was reserved for your M.B.A., the corner office and the elimintion of the "Glass Ceiling".
I'm so happy I don't have a college-aged daughter. I'd have to pay for this nonsense, and she would would be tempered in an enviornment which has all of the forms of education, but none of the substance.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Separation of Church and Sensitbilities...
With the perceived threat of rampant Christian theocracy hanging over us like a pall of black, Papal smoke, I'd like to take a few minutes to consider just what the detractors of religion are so worried about. From where I sit, it would seem that many of the so-called 'liberals' and the religious amongst us have similar goals. If a liberal tells you he wishes to have a fair and just society, where all men are created equal, how is that any different than Jesus' command that we love one another or "do unto others as you would have done unto you", or even Islam's central belief in universal brotherhood?
If the same liberal tells you he wants a just society, then what is the difference between "Thou shalt not kill" and a first degree murder statute? Would slavery have ceased to exist in this country had there not been a strong, moral imperative, stemming from religious faith (amongst other things)? Would the institution of slavery ever been pulled down if Chuck Shumer, Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid been in charge back in the 1860's? Or would the idea be rejected as the "agenda of an extreme right-wing religious zealotry"?
In fact, I can see no difference between much of the liberal mantra and what is offered as the foundations of Christian faith. So what's the hubub all about? The hubub is that the liberal ca no longer advance his agenda through reason, because his reason has been fond to be faulty. The welfare state lifted very few boats, and in fact, perpetuated economic and social inequality. The "tune-in, turn-on, drop-out" crowd did nothing more than glamorize drug use that led to peple gunning each other down in the streets. The micromanagement of people's activities and lifestyles has done little more than to create a permanent class of people incapable of action unless directed by an ever-more expensive and exapnsive government, which achieves very little except it's own perpetuation. And the people are sick of it. They are fighting back, and sending notice that what once was will never be again.
In my opinion, the argumetns about the role of religion in our daiily lives, and in our government institutions, goes to the heart of four very important pillars of liberal belief;
1. That man is his own master and that having been born with an intellect, all advances must be the products of that intellect. The liberal love affair with the intellect is so well documented that to argue otherwise is to waste breath. The intellectual is to the liberal as the Supreme Being is to the faithful. Anything not created or advanced by man's raw intelligence is not useful. The emotional is unimportant unless it can somehow be used to advance the intellectual. For example, liberals trot out the cause of the homeless every so often in order to make a politcal point about the inequities in society, but what do they actually ever do about it? The raw emotion evoked at the sight of a dirty, drug-addicted wretch is powerful: we feel guilt, we feel shame that our fellow human beings are degraded to such a state, hungry, cold and sick. The liberal then takes that guilt and shame, and instead of directly acting upon it, taking a bum to lunch for example, uses it to advance a political agenda more in tune with his ideology; continued utopian experimentation (more drug counselling, more job retraining, etc) and further redistribution of wealth schemes (extending welfare benefits, for example). Never will they actually go out, find bums and take personal responsibility for them the way they urge the rest of us to do.
2. Being intellectual, they believe, excuses them from any actual legwork of physical labor. It is better to think, to suggest, to direct, then to actually produce. So, if bums clog up the street, it's not the liberal's fault (he's thinking really hard about it, and thus, doing his civic duty), it must be someone else's. It's also someone else's place to do the work, to pay for it and to take responsibility. The avoidance of responsibility is anothe rhallmark of the liberal mind. People are not responsible for their actions, and responsibility is usually transferred to some impersonal object or such; "society" is to blame for some evils, guns kill people, automobiles are the main threat to the plane, "the government" pay for things, or alternately, does not pay for them. John Kerry cried to us on television about the plight of the uninsured, but offered no concrete plan to remedy the situation. His fallback position was that the "government" would pay for it all. John's not as dumb as he looks and he knew full well that the "government" meant "the taxpayer". If it worked, he would take responibility for having provided something unprecedented (like the ability to get someone else to pay for your penis enlargement). Had it failed, it would have been because "the program is underfunded". The anvil of blame would never have landed on John's perfectly-coiffed head.
3. That the intellectual is always superior to the spiritual and superstition. Any belief that cannot be reasoned through and cannot be scientifically proven to have a firm foundation, must be the result of suprstition, which is the antithesis of the intellect. The 'leap of faith' threatens the 'leap of logic' and therefore, must be combatted. Utopian society can only be made to work when reason is applied in all areas of human endeavor and when fear, superstition and prejudices can be eliminated. The path to elimination is through reason. In the liberal mindset, once everyone has been taught the same methodology of thought, paradise will follow. And it will be a paradise of human creation, created by the intellect, with no competing system of thought or belief tolerated to screw it up. But faith is strnger than intellect, sometimes,and cannot be combatted once it is entrenched. So, the liberal must be steadfast in his devotion to the elimination of superstition; no prayer in school, no metion of God, removing the Ten Commandments from places where they've been displayed forever.
4. Human paradise can only be brought about by the concentration of power and the moral standing of the state. The state must be the arbiter of all things, an impersonal, solid monolith devoid of all emotions except unquestioning loyalty (from it's subjects). The existence of God threatens the implementation of that kind of state by setting up a rival for the state's authority and the expected loyalty. The first casualty of a politically correct state is religion. Because faith cannot be controlled it must be exterminated.
5. The belief that human nature does not exist while simultaneously advancing the idea that human nature can be controlled. This was the hallmark of communism, by the way. Human nature dictates that people will always act in what they perceive to be their own best interests, very often to the detriment of others. The liberal mantra is that once human nature is adequately controlled or at least shaped properly, then the liberal point of view can predominate. The communists tried to control human nature by eliminating want. They did such a rotten job of it that they barely kept anyone alive.The Nazis turned the darker side of human nature to the wanton destruction of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs in the millions. The Japanese dis the same with regards to Westerners and other Asians. Islam does it today with it cires for Jihad against Westerners, Jews and Christians. In most cases, human nature is merely ignored when it becomes inconvenient. Socialism, for example, can never work because human nature dictates that to have merely enough is never enough. If the opposite were true, civilization would never have blossomed and advanced to the state it already has.
So, what does this have to do with what's happening in the here and now?
When the self-professed (anti-)liberals in the Senate can bluster that they will thwart the rule and will of the majority, defending their actions by claiming to defend the abstract notion of rights, against a similar system based on faith instead of reason, they believe themselves to be justified. They are defending their belief system against another. It never occurs to them that had it not been for the rival belief system, their own could possbily never exist in the first place.
When democrats can claim to be defending the rights of the minority against a looming tyrranical theocratic movement, theyare really defending their own turf --- the continued building of an all-powerful state with no rivals, political or religious, but especially religious.
There is a connotation implied when you throw the adjective 'religious' into your argument. It implies inflexibility, it implies ceeding control to a force or being who cannot be argued with, reasoned with, understood or touched. On several levels, I agree with them. But on the other hand, the same adjective also implies other things; morality, justice and concscience.
To a liberal, morality is what society chooses to make it, not what a society chooses to believe. God may say "thou shalt not kill", but that commandment interferes with the intellectual argument that a woman cannot be truly free unless released from the shackles of motherhood, and that runs counter to the theory of why abortion should be legal. If God commands abstinence until marriage it runs counter to the liberal philosophy of allowing people physical freedom, while denying their political freedom --- you may fuck, all you want, but you may not have a say in how your life is run otherwise. One of the basic arguments in favor of Gay Marriage, which is never discussed, is that while gay sex is considered disgusting and immoral by many, if you gave it the religious patina attached to marriage, it would make the concept more palatible to society as a whole. To a liberal, true freedom revolves around the freedom of his/her genitalia, moral (for Bill Clinton, make that oral) conventions be damned.
The same could be said about justice. It says right there in the Constitution that "All men are created equal", but guilt over past events compels liberals to elevate the 'equality' of some over that of others. You may not racially profile, for example, when it comes to law enforcement or stopping terrorists from acting, but you can (and are encouraged to do so) when it comes to figuring out who goes to law school. Or redesigning a congressional district. Or deciding who gets government largesse. Racial profilling is bad, except when it comes to portraying all whites as lilly-livered, greedy, WASP-ish misers, unfairly controlling all the wealth in the world --- except when it's the lilly-livered, WASP-ish, miserly whites dressed up as defenders of the poor and oppressed. Justice is also a fungible proposition, it's what the liberal says it is today, in order to fit his needs in advancing his agenda. He needs allies because all thinking people cannot see the pure, intellectual grace of hius arguments --- bribed allies do just fine in a pinch.
Add to this the fact that liberals in America have lost control of the visible government (they still lurk in every nook and cranny of the federal and state bureacracies) and you can see why religion is such a bad thing to them. The problem cannot be with the liberal's intellectually-devised, reasonable agenda, it must be because some outside force opposes him. In the past, it was 'reactionaries', 'racists', 'the rich', 'capitalists', 'the nobility'. Today, it is the 'religious'. A liberal canot exist without an enemy to castigate. Today's liberal would have you believe that there is a conspiracy taking place, hatched in the backrooms of redneck churches in the wilds of the south, where snake-handling baptists, married-to-the-Pope Catholics and out-of-their-mind Evangelicals have gotten together in a sinsiter plot to undo all the 'progress' of the last 200 years. The conspirators even have names and faces: George W. Bush, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell.
This religiously fanatic cabal will infiltrate and overthrow all the institutions of American government, and institute an age of radical theology, the likes of which haven't been seen since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 or the Intifada of the 1990's. We will become a nation of religious zealots, every bit as dangerous to it's enemies (read: homosexuals, feminists, minorities, democrats, socialists, college professors, etc) as the fearsome forces of Osama Bin Laden are to us now. To point out that the pposite was true, that liberal fundamentalists have infiltrated the institutions of America, is a lie that must be treated as something akin to a killing offense.
That's why the courts must be 'saved' from fundamentalist Christians who don't believe the Constitution to be an 'evolving' document. Heck, if all documents are 'evolving' then I guess I have 'evolved' to the point where I can take upon myself to stop paying my credit card debt, despite the legally-binding contract I've signed. Times have changed and the credit people have to change with them. Forty years of 'progress' in which we can kill our unborn children because we feel like it, or not pay half our incomes to a remote and uncaring government which will use the funds to further control us, is in danger of being washed away. The liberal vision of America is being wiped away with the same attention to detail as one gives to wiping one's nose.
The democrats and liberals have lost at the ballot box. Their ideas have been rejected, their agenda has been tried and found to be wanting, and the last vestige of hope for them lies in getting the courts to do what the legislatures cannot. Anyone who professes anything approaching religious faith, independant thinking, definite notions of morality, justice and conscience, anyone who believe in the power of a free market, rather than government, to improve the lot of their fellow men must be stopped. At all costs.
Liberals claim to not believe in religion. They will pointot examples of history where religion led people to do harm to their fellow men: the Inquisition and the Crusades are favorite examples. They do this while conveniently ignoring the evils of Islam, the perversion of Shinto that led to Emperor Worship, war and slaughter in Asia. They never point to the 'cult of personality' that brought us Hitler, Mao and Stalin.
But it seems to me that while a liberal insists that he believes there should be a wide gulf between religion and ideology, it becomes ever more apparent that his ideology IS his religion.
With the perceived threat of rampant Christian theocracy hanging over us like a pall of black, Papal smoke, I'd like to take a few minutes to consider just what the detractors of religion are so worried about. From where I sit, it would seem that many of the so-called 'liberals' and the religious amongst us have similar goals. If a liberal tells you he wishes to have a fair and just society, where all men are created equal, how is that any different than Jesus' command that we love one another or "do unto others as you would have done unto you", or even Islam's central belief in universal brotherhood?
If the same liberal tells you he wants a just society, then what is the difference between "Thou shalt not kill" and a first degree murder statute? Would slavery have ceased to exist in this country had there not been a strong, moral imperative, stemming from religious faith (amongst other things)? Would the institution of slavery ever been pulled down if Chuck Shumer, Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid been in charge back in the 1860's? Or would the idea be rejected as the "agenda of an extreme right-wing religious zealotry"?
In fact, I can see no difference between much of the liberal mantra and what is offered as the foundations of Christian faith. So what's the hubub all about? The hubub is that the liberal ca no longer advance his agenda through reason, because his reason has been fond to be faulty. The welfare state lifted very few boats, and in fact, perpetuated economic and social inequality. The "tune-in, turn-on, drop-out" crowd did nothing more than glamorize drug use that led to peple gunning each other down in the streets. The micromanagement of people's activities and lifestyles has done little more than to create a permanent class of people incapable of action unless directed by an ever-more expensive and exapnsive government, which achieves very little except it's own perpetuation. And the people are sick of it. They are fighting back, and sending notice that what once was will never be again.
In my opinion, the argumetns about the role of religion in our daiily lives, and in our government institutions, goes to the heart of four very important pillars of liberal belief;
1. That man is his own master and that having been born with an intellect, all advances must be the products of that intellect. The liberal love affair with the intellect is so well documented that to argue otherwise is to waste breath. The intellectual is to the liberal as the Supreme Being is to the faithful. Anything not created or advanced by man's raw intelligence is not useful. The emotional is unimportant unless it can somehow be used to advance the intellectual. For example, liberals trot out the cause of the homeless every so often in order to make a politcal point about the inequities in society, but what do they actually ever do about it? The raw emotion evoked at the sight of a dirty, drug-addicted wretch is powerful: we feel guilt, we feel shame that our fellow human beings are degraded to such a state, hungry, cold and sick. The liberal then takes that guilt and shame, and instead of directly acting upon it, taking a bum to lunch for example, uses it to advance a political agenda more in tune with his ideology; continued utopian experimentation (more drug counselling, more job retraining, etc) and further redistribution of wealth schemes (extending welfare benefits, for example). Never will they actually go out, find bums and take personal responsibility for them the way they urge the rest of us to do.
2. Being intellectual, they believe, excuses them from any actual legwork of physical labor. It is better to think, to suggest, to direct, then to actually produce. So, if bums clog up the street, it's not the liberal's fault (he's thinking really hard about it, and thus, doing his civic duty), it must be someone else's. It's also someone else's place to do the work, to pay for it and to take responsibility. The avoidance of responsibility is anothe rhallmark of the liberal mind. People are not responsible for their actions, and responsibility is usually transferred to some impersonal object or such; "society" is to blame for some evils, guns kill people, automobiles are the main threat to the plane, "the government" pay for things, or alternately, does not pay for them. John Kerry cried to us on television about the plight of the uninsured, but offered no concrete plan to remedy the situation. His fallback position was that the "government" would pay for it all. John's not as dumb as he looks and he knew full well that the "government" meant "the taxpayer". If it worked, he would take responibility for having provided something unprecedented (like the ability to get someone else to pay for your penis enlargement). Had it failed, it would have been because "the program is underfunded". The anvil of blame would never have landed on John's perfectly-coiffed head.
3. That the intellectual is always superior to the spiritual and superstition. Any belief that cannot be reasoned through and cannot be scientifically proven to have a firm foundation, must be the result of suprstition, which is the antithesis of the intellect. The 'leap of faith' threatens the 'leap of logic' and therefore, must be combatted. Utopian society can only be made to work when reason is applied in all areas of human endeavor and when fear, superstition and prejudices can be eliminated. The path to elimination is through reason. In the liberal mindset, once everyone has been taught the same methodology of thought, paradise will follow. And it will be a paradise of human creation, created by the intellect, with no competing system of thought or belief tolerated to screw it up. But faith is strnger than intellect, sometimes,and cannot be combatted once it is entrenched. So, the liberal must be steadfast in his devotion to the elimination of superstition; no prayer in school, no metion of God, removing the Ten Commandments from places where they've been displayed forever.
4. Human paradise can only be brought about by the concentration of power and the moral standing of the state. The state must be the arbiter of all things, an impersonal, solid monolith devoid of all emotions except unquestioning loyalty (from it's subjects). The existence of God threatens the implementation of that kind of state by setting up a rival for the state's authority and the expected loyalty. The first casualty of a politically correct state is religion. Because faith cannot be controlled it must be exterminated.
5. The belief that human nature does not exist while simultaneously advancing the idea that human nature can be controlled. This was the hallmark of communism, by the way. Human nature dictates that people will always act in what they perceive to be their own best interests, very often to the detriment of others. The liberal mantra is that once human nature is adequately controlled or at least shaped properly, then the liberal point of view can predominate. The communists tried to control human nature by eliminating want. They did such a rotten job of it that they barely kept anyone alive.The Nazis turned the darker side of human nature to the wanton destruction of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs in the millions. The Japanese dis the same with regards to Westerners and other Asians. Islam does it today with it cires for Jihad against Westerners, Jews and Christians. In most cases, human nature is merely ignored when it becomes inconvenient. Socialism, for example, can never work because human nature dictates that to have merely enough is never enough. If the opposite were true, civilization would never have blossomed and advanced to the state it already has.
So, what does this have to do with what's happening in the here and now?
When the self-professed (anti-)liberals in the Senate can bluster that they will thwart the rule and will of the majority, defending their actions by claiming to defend the abstract notion of rights, against a similar system based on faith instead of reason, they believe themselves to be justified. They are defending their belief system against another. It never occurs to them that had it not been for the rival belief system, their own could possbily never exist in the first place.
When democrats can claim to be defending the rights of the minority against a looming tyrranical theocratic movement, theyare really defending their own turf --- the continued building of an all-powerful state with no rivals, political or religious, but especially religious.
There is a connotation implied when you throw the adjective 'religious' into your argument. It implies inflexibility, it implies ceeding control to a force or being who cannot be argued with, reasoned with, understood or touched. On several levels, I agree with them. But on the other hand, the same adjective also implies other things; morality, justice and concscience.
To a liberal, morality is what society chooses to make it, not what a society chooses to believe. God may say "thou shalt not kill", but that commandment interferes with the intellectual argument that a woman cannot be truly free unless released from the shackles of motherhood, and that runs counter to the theory of why abortion should be legal. If God commands abstinence until marriage it runs counter to the liberal philosophy of allowing people physical freedom, while denying their political freedom --- you may fuck, all you want, but you may not have a say in how your life is run otherwise. One of the basic arguments in favor of Gay Marriage, which is never discussed, is that while gay sex is considered disgusting and immoral by many, if you gave it the religious patina attached to marriage, it would make the concept more palatible to society as a whole. To a liberal, true freedom revolves around the freedom of his/her genitalia, moral (for Bill Clinton, make that oral) conventions be damned.
The same could be said about justice. It says right there in the Constitution that "All men are created equal", but guilt over past events compels liberals to elevate the 'equality' of some over that of others. You may not racially profile, for example, when it comes to law enforcement or stopping terrorists from acting, but you can (and are encouraged to do so) when it comes to figuring out who goes to law school. Or redesigning a congressional district. Or deciding who gets government largesse. Racial profilling is bad, except when it comes to portraying all whites as lilly-livered, greedy, WASP-ish misers, unfairly controlling all the wealth in the world --- except when it's the lilly-livered, WASP-ish, miserly whites dressed up as defenders of the poor and oppressed. Justice is also a fungible proposition, it's what the liberal says it is today, in order to fit his needs in advancing his agenda. He needs allies because all thinking people cannot see the pure, intellectual grace of hius arguments --- bribed allies do just fine in a pinch.
Add to this the fact that liberals in America have lost control of the visible government (they still lurk in every nook and cranny of the federal and state bureacracies) and you can see why religion is such a bad thing to them. The problem cannot be with the liberal's intellectually-devised, reasonable agenda, it must be because some outside force opposes him. In the past, it was 'reactionaries', 'racists', 'the rich', 'capitalists', 'the nobility'. Today, it is the 'religious'. A liberal canot exist without an enemy to castigate. Today's liberal would have you believe that there is a conspiracy taking place, hatched in the backrooms of redneck churches in the wilds of the south, where snake-handling baptists, married-to-the-Pope Catholics and out-of-their-mind Evangelicals have gotten together in a sinsiter plot to undo all the 'progress' of the last 200 years. The conspirators even have names and faces: George W. Bush, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell.
This religiously fanatic cabal will infiltrate and overthrow all the institutions of American government, and institute an age of radical theology, the likes of which haven't been seen since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 or the Intifada of the 1990's. We will become a nation of religious zealots, every bit as dangerous to it's enemies (read: homosexuals, feminists, minorities, democrats, socialists, college professors, etc) as the fearsome forces of Osama Bin Laden are to us now. To point out that the pposite was true, that liberal fundamentalists have infiltrated the institutions of America, is a lie that must be treated as something akin to a killing offense.
That's why the courts must be 'saved' from fundamentalist Christians who don't believe the Constitution to be an 'evolving' document. Heck, if all documents are 'evolving' then I guess I have 'evolved' to the point where I can take upon myself to stop paying my credit card debt, despite the legally-binding contract I've signed. Times have changed and the credit people have to change with them. Forty years of 'progress' in which we can kill our unborn children because we feel like it, or not pay half our incomes to a remote and uncaring government which will use the funds to further control us, is in danger of being washed away. The liberal vision of America is being wiped away with the same attention to detail as one gives to wiping one's nose.
The democrats and liberals have lost at the ballot box. Their ideas have been rejected, their agenda has been tried and found to be wanting, and the last vestige of hope for them lies in getting the courts to do what the legislatures cannot. Anyone who professes anything approaching religious faith, independant thinking, definite notions of morality, justice and conscience, anyone who believe in the power of a free market, rather than government, to improve the lot of their fellow men must be stopped. At all costs.
Liberals claim to not believe in religion. They will pointot examples of history where religion led people to do harm to their fellow men: the Inquisition and the Crusades are favorite examples. They do this while conveniently ignoring the evils of Islam, the perversion of Shinto that led to Emperor Worship, war and slaughter in Asia. They never point to the 'cult of personality' that brought us Hitler, Mao and Stalin.
But it seems to me that while a liberal insists that he believes there should be a wide gulf between religion and ideology, it becomes ever more apparent that his ideology IS his religion.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Meanwhile, back at the Bat Cave...
Interesting confession fromt he Fed'ral Government about the recent spate of news reports and 'studies' on the effects of obeisity. Thakns to Glenn Reynolds at Tech Central Station, we have this:
http://techcentralstation.com/042205D.html
I wonder now if we will ever hear anything about the cancer-causing potential of Tofu.
Score one for the Cookie Monster!
Interesting confession fromt he Fed'ral Government about the recent spate of news reports and 'studies' on the effects of obeisity. Thakns to Glenn Reynolds at Tech Central Station, we have this:
http://techcentralstation.com/042205D.html
I wonder now if we will ever hear anything about the cancer-causing potential of Tofu.
Score one for the Cookie Monster!
Paging Aldus Huxley...
The conformist, sterile society described in Brave New World has finally arrived. Civilization as we know it is no longer the dynamic engine of constant change and personal advancement. Time has stopped.
Cookie Monster is no longer the Cookie Monster.
I kid you not. In an effort to teach kids about the dangers of junk food, the Children's Television Workshop, the creators of the only show on PBS that was ever worth watching, have decided that Cookie Monster is sending the wrong message to our children. The Cookie Monster that my generation grew up with, loved, venerated, and if it had a chance, would elect to the Senate, will now become a 'healthy eater'. Next up: Bert and Ernie egage in Civil Union, Big Bird mercy kills Mr Snuffleufagus (finally diagnosed as being in a 'persistent vegetative state') for his stem cells, and Elmo is revealed to be a repeat sexual offender released from a Florida prison 24 times.
Conformity has finally arrived. Even for gluttonous puppets.
I used to believe that it was really 1984 that had arrived, with our newly-found ideological rigidnesss and politically-convenient mangling of the language, but I'm wrong on so many levels. We're living in the world that Huxley predicted.
A pill for every disease, no matter how minor. Human beings harvested for their parts like a junkyard. People being defined and categorized by their utility to society. The nails sticking out being pounded down by the hammer of conventional wisdom, and federally funded conventional wisdom, at that. Cookie Monster as vegan. The health and safety Nazis have finally gone too far.
I remember when I was a child that Cookie Monster was special because he was a laugh riot to the four year old brain. He tickled the fancy of children everywhere with his outrageous antics in the pursuit of the chocolate chip. Hs strove mightily for the brass macaroon. He was out of control and on a mission to leave not one crumb unconsumed. Cookie Monster, in short, was the last, true individual, hedonistically-driven to achieve the Hoy Grail of cookie-dom.
Political Correctness has finally killed childhood. May it Rest In Peace.
CTW claims that they are merely trying to send a positive message to children that binge eating and junk food are hazardous to their health. Obesity is dangerous: you can die from it, you know. In all my years, all that is fun about being a child, all that makes worthwhile, has been systematically stripped from succeeding generations until they become good little PC robots incapable of exercising judgement, unable to believe anything unless they see it on TV or have it drilled into their heads in a government school. Meanwhile, the messages they are sent are mixed, purposely, with the goal of creating empty vessels ever present:
Diversity is a wonderful thing; unless you are religious, obese or republican.
You have choices; provided those choices lead you to an abortion and homosexuality.
It's your right to dissent; provided that dissent is officially allowed and follows the party line.
It's your body do what you want to; Except drink soda, eat junk food, smoke ,or stay celebate.
And now this.
Now, my own childhood was not exactly some scene from Norman Rockwell, of course. In my day, we had to worry about Nuclear Holocaust, urban racial violence, and Earth Shoes. But, at the end of the day, we still had Cookie Monster, Bugs, Yogi, Woody and Scooby, all engaged in outrageous displays of excess; all revolving around violence or eating, of course. There's a direct correlation, you know, between violence and McDonald's. But, I don't know a single kid that ever placed dynamite in his antagonist's shorts because Bugs did. I know of not one single, documented case where two children beat each other senseless with overszed mallets, like Woody often did. None of us travelled constantly in a funky van, with a narcissist, a slacker, a hot chick and a sexually-repressed brainiac, chasing ghosts for a living. But we did eat cookies. And we enjoyed it.
And we enjoyed the antics of our Cookie Furher, that little ball of blue fur that taught us that a cookie was more than a simple pleasure in life; it was a God-given right. We laughed, we sang, we mimicked, and it was cute as hell.
I cannnot imagine a 4 year old today, joyously and recklessly devouring a stalk of celery, a head of lettuce or a plate of raddichio, screaming "Veeegggggieeeeee!".
But, as we learned in the 90's, anytime you say "it's for the children" that's supposed to end all debate. Destroy the image of the cookie as something good, take the fun out eating a cookie, take the laughter out a little slice of childhood, and it's all to the common good?
The Age of Conformist Nonsense is upon us, and it is a sad day.
The conformist, sterile society described in Brave New World has finally arrived. Civilization as we know it is no longer the dynamic engine of constant change and personal advancement. Time has stopped.
Cookie Monster is no longer the Cookie Monster.
I kid you not. In an effort to teach kids about the dangers of junk food, the Children's Television Workshop, the creators of the only show on PBS that was ever worth watching, have decided that Cookie Monster is sending the wrong message to our children. The Cookie Monster that my generation grew up with, loved, venerated, and if it had a chance, would elect to the Senate, will now become a 'healthy eater'. Next up: Bert and Ernie egage in Civil Union, Big Bird mercy kills Mr Snuffleufagus (finally diagnosed as being in a 'persistent vegetative state') for his stem cells, and Elmo is revealed to be a repeat sexual offender released from a Florida prison 24 times.
Conformity has finally arrived. Even for gluttonous puppets.
I used to believe that it was really 1984 that had arrived, with our newly-found ideological rigidnesss and politically-convenient mangling of the language, but I'm wrong on so many levels. We're living in the world that Huxley predicted.
A pill for every disease, no matter how minor. Human beings harvested for their parts like a junkyard. People being defined and categorized by their utility to society. The nails sticking out being pounded down by the hammer of conventional wisdom, and federally funded conventional wisdom, at that. Cookie Monster as vegan. The health and safety Nazis have finally gone too far.
I remember when I was a child that Cookie Monster was special because he was a laugh riot to the four year old brain. He tickled the fancy of children everywhere with his outrageous antics in the pursuit of the chocolate chip. Hs strove mightily for the brass macaroon. He was out of control and on a mission to leave not one crumb unconsumed. Cookie Monster, in short, was the last, true individual, hedonistically-driven to achieve the Hoy Grail of cookie-dom.
Political Correctness has finally killed childhood. May it Rest In Peace.
CTW claims that they are merely trying to send a positive message to children that binge eating and junk food are hazardous to their health. Obesity is dangerous: you can die from it, you know. In all my years, all that is fun about being a child, all that makes worthwhile, has been systematically stripped from succeeding generations until they become good little PC robots incapable of exercising judgement, unable to believe anything unless they see it on TV or have it drilled into their heads in a government school. Meanwhile, the messages they are sent are mixed, purposely, with the goal of creating empty vessels ever present:
Diversity is a wonderful thing; unless you are religious, obese or republican.
You have choices; provided those choices lead you to an abortion and homosexuality.
It's your right to dissent; provided that dissent is officially allowed and follows the party line.
It's your body do what you want to; Except drink soda, eat junk food, smoke ,or stay celebate.
And now this.
Now, my own childhood was not exactly some scene from Norman Rockwell, of course. In my day, we had to worry about Nuclear Holocaust, urban racial violence, and Earth Shoes. But, at the end of the day, we still had Cookie Monster, Bugs, Yogi, Woody and Scooby, all engaged in outrageous displays of excess; all revolving around violence or eating, of course. There's a direct correlation, you know, between violence and McDonald's. But, I don't know a single kid that ever placed dynamite in his antagonist's shorts because Bugs did. I know of not one single, documented case where two children beat each other senseless with overszed mallets, like Woody often did. None of us travelled constantly in a funky van, with a narcissist, a slacker, a hot chick and a sexually-repressed brainiac, chasing ghosts for a living. But we did eat cookies. And we enjoyed it.
And we enjoyed the antics of our Cookie Furher, that little ball of blue fur that taught us that a cookie was more than a simple pleasure in life; it was a God-given right. We laughed, we sang, we mimicked, and it was cute as hell.
I cannnot imagine a 4 year old today, joyously and recklessly devouring a stalk of celery, a head of lettuce or a plate of raddichio, screaming "Veeegggggieeeeee!".
But, as we learned in the 90's, anytime you say "it's for the children" that's supposed to end all debate. Destroy the image of the cookie as something good, take the fun out eating a cookie, take the laughter out a little slice of childhood, and it's all to the common good?
The Age of Conformist Nonsense is upon us, and it is a sad day.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
On Going Where 'No Man Has Gone Before"...
Oh no, not a Star Trek blog! Normally, I wouldn't stoop to such geekiness and publicly announce that next to WWII documentaries on the History Channel, I probably watch more Star Trek, per capita, than most people. And though it isn't current, I still feel a need to complain somewhat about the original and it's offspring.
The original Star Trek was a creature of it's time, blending the prevalent Sci-fi themes with the politics of the 1960's, all surrounded by a lame future-art-decco aura. Look hard enough and you will find a lava lamp in Mr. Spock's quarters. The initial foray into multi-culti pap was evident; a Japanese helmsman, Scottish chief engineer, African communications officer, Russian navigator, Vulcan (alien) science officer. Note, however, that the blowhard who kept it all together was American, a midwesterner, played by a Canadian, no less.
It reflected the mores of it's time: women in short mod skirts with knee-length boots --- this was considered the height of sexy in the day, and it worked on some of the Star Trek babes. Half naked, alien women willing to help Capt. Kirk through full rut, reeked of taboo. The notion of alien pre-marital sex was considered racy, I guess.
Star Trek gave us a glimpse into our future -- you will find the forerunners of the cell phone, the floppy disk, amazing medical progress, voice-reponse-capable computers, vido conferencing. Even the Shuttlecraft is eerily reminiscent of the SUV -- a boxy, all-purpose vehicle capable of hauling just about anything and anyone, but not really all that utilitarian at the same time. It did little to show how all this technology affected mankind, except to brag that they had created a society without 'want'. Socialism dressed up as entertainment, to a certain extent.
The show tackled the issues of it's day: civil rights, anti-war protests, overpopulation, creeping, world government, interracial relationships, humanity's inhumanity. Watching the original shows, you get several impressions: it's campy, over the top for it's day, brave and bold and occasionally, silly. In short, it summed up the 1960's very nicely; people kept trying new things but kept coming up with the sme problems. It became incredibly repetitious. If it wasn't for the occasional masterful performance by Leonard Nimoy (let's face it --- it's hard to do that stuff with a straight face, imagine trying to do it with no emotion at all), the show would have all the allure of a Congressional Hearing on the Crisis of Tooth Decay. Still, it was entertaining.
Fast forward to the 1990's, when we get the updated version, The Next Generation, which set out to destroy stereotypes with a vengance; French Captain with a backbone, blind engineer, sentient androids that somehow get definied as living organisms because they merely felt that way. It has those other touchy-feely aspects that made life somewhat disgusting in the 90's; a ship's counselor, ensuring that enough psychobabble was injected into every episode, a boy-man techno-genius intended to ratify Whitney Houston's theory that 'children are our future'. This new Star Trek added the quintessence of the 1990's; a call for a return to family values (the crew brought their families aboard, causing stresses --- just ask Worf, Troi, and Dr. Crusher,-- as they struggle to juggle career with the demands of parenting and familial bonds), moral relativism with it's repeated paeans to the Prime Directive (i.e. do no harm unless by doing harm you increase the power and reach of the state, i.e. thge Federation). When the shallowness of the series became too evident (after say, five episodes) the writers simply threw out technospeak, theorhetical physics beyond the capacity fo the audience to understand, a few cameos by the stars of the original, and occasionally picking up a loose thread from the original series and following it to it's (I'm sorry) logical conclusion. All in all, a pale shadow of the original with more whiz-bang gadgets. After 30 seconds, it usually devolved into the Commander Data hour (btw, Brent Spiner is a consumate actor).
The show progressed (or is it regressed?) to more 90's-oriented themes with Deep Space Nine. The Federation acts as U.N. Nation-builders in a place reminiscent of Somalia or Afghanistan --- a planet wracked by war, with no natural resources and anchored by slavish devotion to a barely-understood, falatistic religion. We see other 90's icons in this show: the corrupt, greedy businessman who sometimes, despite himself, manages to do good (Ferenghi, btw, is a rendering of an old Hindu word that was used to describe the British East India companymen), the outsider (Odo, the unknown shapeshifting, alien entity who cannot even tell you about his origin, but is always on a quest to 'find himself'). Along the way, we're introduced to more multi-culturism than we can stand: science officer with an implanted creature inside her, more Klingons than you can shake a stick at, a station where three million different aliens mix in somewhat-peace, an Arab doctor, a female, Amazon-like freedom fighter, an finally, a black commander.
It got old as soon as it aired. We were that jaded by then.
Followed up by Star Trek: Voyager, in which Kate Milgrew leads an even more mixed crew through a galaxy that she just happened to get them lost in. Captain Janeway was the epitome of the 90's woman: seemingly strong, yet capable of bawling if she broke a nail, and so headstrong that she refused to stop and ask for directions. All the hallmarks of the gender-confused society. We see a protest against HMO's with a holographic doctor. We're treated to a hot Borg-Human combination that emulates the 90's ice princess to a T. Just to remind you that you are, indeed, watching Star Trek, we're treated to a Vulcan, and a black Vulcan at that. Diversity just doesn't extend to other worlds, it's invaded them as well.
And finally, we come to the worst of the series, Enterprise, an attempt to emulate Star Wars by making the series into a "prequel". I watched it exactly 4 times. It was that bad. Except for the very sexy female Vulcan with an iron rod shoved up her ass, it was thoroughly not memeorable. Another 90's rage: throwbacks.
And somehow, I can't help but think that Star Trek will have yet one more permutation in it's future. Perhaps they'll call it Star Trek: Legacy, in which we'll trace the unintended consequences of all the previous shows. We'll see what happens to the string of illegitimate children scattered around the galaxy by Kirk. Perhaps we'll see Vulcans degreaded by Earth culture in the same way the French complain they are corrupted by American. Perhaps the Federation will become as contentious as Republicans and Democrats arguing over a judicial appointment, leading to dueling press releases and sound bites which ultimately say nothing. Maybe, just maybe, if we're lucky, we might even see a show that does away with the touchy-feely philosophy, heavily laced with scientific crap.
BTW, I felt compelled to write this because I've just watched two incredibly bad episodes of DS9, and came away with the reinforced notion, that as always and in all things, nothing matches the original. Even whent he original wasn't all that great, nostalgia still builds it up to be more than it was.
Oh no, not a Star Trek blog! Normally, I wouldn't stoop to such geekiness and publicly announce that next to WWII documentaries on the History Channel, I probably watch more Star Trek, per capita, than most people. And though it isn't current, I still feel a need to complain somewhat about the original and it's offspring.
The original Star Trek was a creature of it's time, blending the prevalent Sci-fi themes with the politics of the 1960's, all surrounded by a lame future-art-decco aura. Look hard enough and you will find a lava lamp in Mr. Spock's quarters. The initial foray into multi-culti pap was evident; a Japanese helmsman, Scottish chief engineer, African communications officer, Russian navigator, Vulcan (alien) science officer. Note, however, that the blowhard who kept it all together was American, a midwesterner, played by a Canadian, no less.
It reflected the mores of it's time: women in short mod skirts with knee-length boots --- this was considered the height of sexy in the day, and it worked on some of the Star Trek babes. Half naked, alien women willing to help Capt. Kirk through full rut, reeked of taboo. The notion of alien pre-marital sex was considered racy, I guess.
Star Trek gave us a glimpse into our future -- you will find the forerunners of the cell phone, the floppy disk, amazing medical progress, voice-reponse-capable computers, vido conferencing. Even the Shuttlecraft is eerily reminiscent of the SUV -- a boxy, all-purpose vehicle capable of hauling just about anything and anyone, but not really all that utilitarian at the same time. It did little to show how all this technology affected mankind, except to brag that they had created a society without 'want'. Socialism dressed up as entertainment, to a certain extent.
The show tackled the issues of it's day: civil rights, anti-war protests, overpopulation, creeping, world government, interracial relationships, humanity's inhumanity. Watching the original shows, you get several impressions: it's campy, over the top for it's day, brave and bold and occasionally, silly. In short, it summed up the 1960's very nicely; people kept trying new things but kept coming up with the sme problems. It became incredibly repetitious. If it wasn't for the occasional masterful performance by Leonard Nimoy (let's face it --- it's hard to do that stuff with a straight face, imagine trying to do it with no emotion at all), the show would have all the allure of a Congressional Hearing on the Crisis of Tooth Decay. Still, it was entertaining.
Fast forward to the 1990's, when we get the updated version, The Next Generation, which set out to destroy stereotypes with a vengance; French Captain with a backbone, blind engineer, sentient androids that somehow get definied as living organisms because they merely felt that way. It has those other touchy-feely aspects that made life somewhat disgusting in the 90's; a ship's counselor, ensuring that enough psychobabble was injected into every episode, a boy-man techno-genius intended to ratify Whitney Houston's theory that 'children are our future'. This new Star Trek added the quintessence of the 1990's; a call for a return to family values (the crew brought their families aboard, causing stresses --- just ask Worf, Troi, and Dr. Crusher,-- as they struggle to juggle career with the demands of parenting and familial bonds), moral relativism with it's repeated paeans to the Prime Directive (i.e. do no harm unless by doing harm you increase the power and reach of the state, i.e. thge Federation). When the shallowness of the series became too evident (after say, five episodes) the writers simply threw out technospeak, theorhetical physics beyond the capacity fo the audience to understand, a few cameos by the stars of the original, and occasionally picking up a loose thread from the original series and following it to it's (I'm sorry) logical conclusion. All in all, a pale shadow of the original with more whiz-bang gadgets. After 30 seconds, it usually devolved into the Commander Data hour (btw, Brent Spiner is a consumate actor).
The show progressed (or is it regressed?) to more 90's-oriented themes with Deep Space Nine. The Federation acts as U.N. Nation-builders in a place reminiscent of Somalia or Afghanistan --- a planet wracked by war, with no natural resources and anchored by slavish devotion to a barely-understood, falatistic religion. We see other 90's icons in this show: the corrupt, greedy businessman who sometimes, despite himself, manages to do good (Ferenghi, btw, is a rendering of an old Hindu word that was used to describe the British East India companymen), the outsider (Odo, the unknown shapeshifting, alien entity who cannot even tell you about his origin, but is always on a quest to 'find himself'). Along the way, we're introduced to more multi-culturism than we can stand: science officer with an implanted creature inside her, more Klingons than you can shake a stick at, a station where three million different aliens mix in somewhat-peace, an Arab doctor, a female, Amazon-like freedom fighter, an finally, a black commander.
It got old as soon as it aired. We were that jaded by then.
Followed up by Star Trek: Voyager, in which Kate Milgrew leads an even more mixed crew through a galaxy that she just happened to get them lost in. Captain Janeway was the epitome of the 90's woman: seemingly strong, yet capable of bawling if she broke a nail, and so headstrong that she refused to stop and ask for directions. All the hallmarks of the gender-confused society. We see a protest against HMO's with a holographic doctor. We're treated to a hot Borg-Human combination that emulates the 90's ice princess to a T. Just to remind you that you are, indeed, watching Star Trek, we're treated to a Vulcan, and a black Vulcan at that. Diversity just doesn't extend to other worlds, it's invaded them as well.
And finally, we come to the worst of the series, Enterprise, an attempt to emulate Star Wars by making the series into a "prequel". I watched it exactly 4 times. It was that bad. Except for the very sexy female Vulcan with an iron rod shoved up her ass, it was thoroughly not memeorable. Another 90's rage: throwbacks.
And somehow, I can't help but think that Star Trek will have yet one more permutation in it's future. Perhaps they'll call it Star Trek: Legacy, in which we'll trace the unintended consequences of all the previous shows. We'll see what happens to the string of illegitimate children scattered around the galaxy by Kirk. Perhaps we'll see Vulcans degreaded by Earth culture in the same way the French complain they are corrupted by American. Perhaps the Federation will become as contentious as Republicans and Democrats arguing over a judicial appointment, leading to dueling press releases and sound bites which ultimately say nothing. Maybe, just maybe, if we're lucky, we might even see a show that does away with the touchy-feely philosophy, heavily laced with scientific crap.
BTW, I felt compelled to write this because I've just watched two incredibly bad episodes of DS9, and came away with the reinforced notion, that as always and in all things, nothing matches the original. Even whent he original wasn't all that great, nostalgia still builds it up to be more than it was.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
May You Live in Interesting Times...
The closest thing to a cuss word or phrase in Ancient China was the retort, "May you live in Interesting Times". It was a double-edged sort of phrase: it denoted a sincere wish that life not be boring for you, and also indicated that the well-wisher would like to see you hanging from a tree with your throat slit. Preferably after you'd been gang-raped by Mongols.
We live in some pretty interesting times right now. I call them interesting not because all of of what I'm about to spout about draws my attention in the same ways as, say, a hockey game, but because every one of the things on my list makes me shake my head at the density of the human skull. What I mean to say is, it's interesting because it's so obviously stupid, yet a good number of my fellow human beings just don't get it.
Interesting things:
- A woman (I think) who has been up to her eyeballs in illegal business dealings, refused to submit evidence that was subpoenaed by a court of law, who has no obvious qualifications, and who has ridden her husband's coattails while championing the cause that women are strong, independent, capable members of the human species, just might be a candidate for the highest office in America in 3 years. What's even worse is that in the face of some catastrophic event, she just might win. Hypocrisy notwithstanding, how anyone could buy the load of garbage this woman is selling is beyond me. It leaves me frightened at the thought of mankind's future and very existence.
- As we speak, a certain Congressman from Texas is being pilloried for a) doing something that is not illegal, b) doing something that, at this time, 34 of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle have also done, c) professing Christian faith, d) having the poor taste to thumb his nose at the press. This despite the fact that his detractors insist that every one is innocent until proven guilty, bewail the lack of "bi-partisanship", and that many of their pantheon of Olympian heroes have done worse. No evidence of wrong doing has been presented and no one has brought charges or a lawsuit against the man. Instead, this case is being tried in the court of public opinion, and in the hallowed halls of the House ethics Committee, which has ALWAYS been known for honesty and fairness. Just ask Newt Gingrich.
- Right now, a corrupt United Nations, a supposedly altruistic institution, is trying to explain why: a) it's executives stole billions of dollars meant to help starving people, b) how despotic regimes currently engaging in genocide happen to be it's point-men on Human Rights, c) why it runs brothels in about 14 different regions of the world, d) why it is still relevant or even useful. In the meantime, despite the evidence to the contrary there are those screaming that such a despicable organization not only should continue to exist, but it should be funded to the hilt and consulted more often. Yes, I always go to thieving, hypocritical, child molesters when I need sage advice.
- At the present time, people who hate Christianity are preparing strategies to co-opt Christian doctrine and values in a cynical ploy to get elected. To these people, to be a Christian is to be an unthinking automaton, a puppet of the Pope or your nearest televagelist, and that your head is so addled with "Thou shalt not.." That they might be able to con you into believing that they, too, believe the same things. They are doing this because they believe that Christians are now the key to electoral triumphalism, and haven't once stopped to think that perhaps they lost because their candidates and ideas are unpalatable. When in doubt, blame someone else for your mistakes. Do not be surprised to hear certain bloviating, murder-suspect Senators from New England, almost-convicted criminals from New York and fading-ex-hippies from California reciting the 23rd Psalm three times a day in the coming year.
- Right now, Jane Fonda is hoping to re-write history and erase memories as she hawks a book and a movie. She hopes to explain away her treason, her poor taste and her stupidity as the legacy of a mis-spent youth on the one hand, while continuing to believe that people are quite so dumb as to actually give her the benefit of the doubt on the other. Unfortunately, those that watch Larry King will swallow this hook, line and sinker.
- A few weeks ago, a living, breathing human being was starved to death by court order, yet convicted sex offenders walk around by the grace of the courts, raping and murdering several children in the last few weeks. On the opposite coast, a celebrity child molester is attempting to convince a jury that two dozen witnesses against him, witnesses he so obviously tried to buy off, are all lying when they say he molested them or their children. He is given even more latitude than your typical pedophile simply because he happens to be famous. Or is it infamous now? In the meantime, we agonize and debate as to whether or not sexual offenders should be tracked with GPS devices or have computer chips implanted in their skin. No stone, apparently, will go un-turned in the not-too-vigorous-defense of our children. No court in the land can bring itself to recognize some crimes as too heinous to let it's perpetrators live. Instead, we argue about the perp's "rights" and "comfort".
- A week ago, a Royal wedding between the two ugliest people in Britain got more attention than the crisis that faces this country due to unprotected borders. Private citizens who decided to volunteer to protect borders the government will not, were not congratulated, but instead castigated by jealous federal unions, so-called "liberals" and the press. God forbid anyone in this country should do anything so gauche as to uphold the law. Especially the people who are charged with writing and enforcing it.
The closest thing to a cuss word or phrase in Ancient China was the retort, "May you live in Interesting Times". It was a double-edged sort of phrase: it denoted a sincere wish that life not be boring for you, and also indicated that the well-wisher would like to see you hanging from a tree with your throat slit. Preferably after you'd been gang-raped by Mongols.
We live in some pretty interesting times right now. I call them interesting not because all of of what I'm about to spout about draws my attention in the same ways as, say, a hockey game, but because every one of the things on my list makes me shake my head at the density of the human skull. What I mean to say is, it's interesting because it's so obviously stupid, yet a good number of my fellow human beings just don't get it.
Interesting things:
- A woman (I think) who has been up to her eyeballs in illegal business dealings, refused to submit evidence that was subpoenaed by a court of law, who has no obvious qualifications, and who has ridden her husband's coattails while championing the cause that women are strong, independent, capable members of the human species, just might be a candidate for the highest office in America in 3 years. What's even worse is that in the face of some catastrophic event, she just might win. Hypocrisy notwithstanding, how anyone could buy the load of garbage this woman is selling is beyond me. It leaves me frightened at the thought of mankind's future and very existence.
- As we speak, a certain Congressman from Texas is being pilloried for a) doing something that is not illegal, b) doing something that, at this time, 34 of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle have also done, c) professing Christian faith, d) having the poor taste to thumb his nose at the press. This despite the fact that his detractors insist that every one is innocent until proven guilty, bewail the lack of "bi-partisanship", and that many of their pantheon of Olympian heroes have done worse. No evidence of wrong doing has been presented and no one has brought charges or a lawsuit against the man. Instead, this case is being tried in the court of public opinion, and in the hallowed halls of the House ethics Committee, which has ALWAYS been known for honesty and fairness. Just ask Newt Gingrich.
- Right now, a corrupt United Nations, a supposedly altruistic institution, is trying to explain why: a) it's executives stole billions of dollars meant to help starving people, b) how despotic regimes currently engaging in genocide happen to be it's point-men on Human Rights, c) why it runs brothels in about 14 different regions of the world, d) why it is still relevant or even useful. In the meantime, despite the evidence to the contrary there are those screaming that such a despicable organization not only should continue to exist, but it should be funded to the hilt and consulted more often. Yes, I always go to thieving, hypocritical, child molesters when I need sage advice.
- At the present time, people who hate Christianity are preparing strategies to co-opt Christian doctrine and values in a cynical ploy to get elected. To these people, to be a Christian is to be an unthinking automaton, a puppet of the Pope or your nearest televagelist, and that your head is so addled with "Thou shalt not.." That they might be able to con you into believing that they, too, believe the same things. They are doing this because they believe that Christians are now the key to electoral triumphalism, and haven't once stopped to think that perhaps they lost because their candidates and ideas are unpalatable. When in doubt, blame someone else for your mistakes. Do not be surprised to hear certain bloviating, murder-suspect Senators from New England, almost-convicted criminals from New York and fading-ex-hippies from California reciting the 23rd Psalm three times a day in the coming year.
- Right now, Jane Fonda is hoping to re-write history and erase memories as she hawks a book and a movie. She hopes to explain away her treason, her poor taste and her stupidity as the legacy of a mis-spent youth on the one hand, while continuing to believe that people are quite so dumb as to actually give her the benefit of the doubt on the other. Unfortunately, those that watch Larry King will swallow this hook, line and sinker.
- A few weeks ago, a living, breathing human being was starved to death by court order, yet convicted sex offenders walk around by the grace of the courts, raping and murdering several children in the last few weeks. On the opposite coast, a celebrity child molester is attempting to convince a jury that two dozen witnesses against him, witnesses he so obviously tried to buy off, are all lying when they say he molested them or their children. He is given even more latitude than your typical pedophile simply because he happens to be famous. Or is it infamous now? In the meantime, we agonize and debate as to whether or not sexual offenders should be tracked with GPS devices or have computer chips implanted in their skin. No stone, apparently, will go un-turned in the not-too-vigorous-defense of our children. No court in the land can bring itself to recognize some crimes as too heinous to let it's perpetrators live. Instead, we argue about the perp's "rights" and "comfort".
- A week ago, a Royal wedding between the two ugliest people in Britain got more attention than the crisis that faces this country due to unprotected borders. Private citizens who decided to volunteer to protect borders the government will not, were not congratulated, but instead castigated by jealous federal unions, so-called "liberals" and the press. God forbid anyone in this country should do anything so gauche as to uphold the law. Especially the people who are charged with writing and enforcing it.
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