faith in a box and an anti-american upbringing
Mood:  a-ok

opening note: yesterday, got eight pages of the clubhouse blues rewrite out of the first four pages of the original version

and, now to interrupt the season of lists...

the parents television council released the results of a study they called faith in a box. 2,385 hours of primetime shows, with 2,344 treatments of religion, were analyzed. and, negative treatment was the winner, yay

specifically:

"nbc was the decisive leader in broadcasting negative depictions of faith and religion. nbc programming had 9.5 negative treatments for every positive treatment of faith. fox followed with 2.4 negative depictions for each one that was positive. wb and abc tied with 1.2 negative for each positive, followed by upn with 1 negative for every 1.1 positive, cbs with 1 negative for every 2 positive and pax which did not have a single negative depiction."

582 of the "treatments" were references to faith and those tended to be positive. hell, even that originally great character grace on jack & bobby had a speech about faith that religious organizations like the ptc would love (nevermind that it was silly and didn't fit the character established previously, not that i'm still complaining about that show which i subsequently dropped). "less common, and more likely to be shown in a negative light, are more specific elements of religion, such as a particular church and its teachings, devout laity, and the clergy."

"the treatment of religion in an institutional or doctrinal context (such as a reference to a church service, a particular denomination, or to Scripture) was strikingly negative." I'm sure the Simpsons made it on that list, since most times they go to church it's played for a laugh or an annoyance

here's a finding that bugged me: "negative depictions of clergy were more than twice as frequent as positive depictions - 36.2 percent negative compared to 14.6 percent positive." it didn't bug me that clergy were referenced negatively, of course. i'm all for that. the thing is, 36 percent negative plus 14 percent positive doesn't come anywhere close to 100 percent. apparently, 50 percent was indifferent. couldn't we throw indifference into negative, just to make the results sound... better? isn't indifference worse than a blatantly negative reference? or, if it isn't, can't we take another look at that indifferent half and get some new criteria to find results before we fucking publish? i mean, come on. only half the damn representations bother to put a value judgement (in the opinion of the ptc, anyway) on clergy, and that's worth publishing?

how about, we get a new study focused on just that 14 percent positive and why it still exists. i mean, sure, a big part of this country is religious folks, and supposedly some 90 percent of us believe in god (80 in the resurrection of christ, by the way). but, shouldn't writers (the folks putting together the content of all these shows) be smarter than average? and, shouldn't that make them less likely to be religous. afterall, we all know intelligence and religion are not analogous, right?

right? we DO all know that? you religious people haven't actually convinced yourselves that you're smart and that's why you believe in magical beings in the sky that look out for you when you do stupid and dangerous things. it's not your genius that makes you see god in every tree and in every child and in every pile of shit, is it?

permit me a roll of the eyes and a sad, sad sigh

"these findings lend credibility to the idea that hollywood accepts spirituality, but shies away from endorsing, or even tolerating, organized religion," concluded bozell, the president of the ptc. see, spirituality doesn't have to be religous. someone should explain that to him, and to all the rest of the religious people

then, we'll get started on the "spiritual" people and indoctrinating them into atheism

except that might be illegal soon, just like teaching anything "anti-american" to our children could be, nevermind the definition of the term. an 11-year old who lives near washington dc was accused of being anti-american. an official complaint about some things he said in school made its way to the county sheriff and the boy and his parents were questioned. had the parents been teaching him anti-american things? were they anti-american? what did they think of 9-11? did they associate with foreigners who didn't like america? stuff like that

the kid opposes the military and refused a veteran's day assignment (writing a letter to a marine), saying something about how all marines could die, for all he cares. and, this got him investigated for potentially being anti-american and a danger to his fellow classmates and his fellow man, cause you know after the terrorist attack on columbine high school, we can't be too careful. and, with christianity under attack by television, we must assume that this kid isn't getting some good christianity ingrained in him how we want and that with his anti-american parents, he's certainly a danger to us all. hell, why isn't he in camp x-ray already? i mean, a complaint was filed. damn the evidence. damn the investigation. let's just send him away with saddam and peterson and mcveigh... oh wait, last one's already dead

last one was a christian, as well, as far as i've seen. wonder if that makes any sense, a christian doing violent things? a christian wanting people to die? that's crazy talk. it's only the dark-skinned followers of allah who kill people. it's only the enemies of the united states that kill people. it's only the cohorts of emmanuel goldstein... saddam hussein... osama bin laden... that kill people. only al qaeda and whoever else we fell like bombing

the season of lists part one - books
Mood:  cool

it's december, the season for "best of" lists, and while i won't be as shallow as to name the most beautiful people of the year or anything like that, i'm not above making lists. hell, i rather like lists. i like organization of information, keeping track of what tv shows to watch, what movies to rent, what books to read, what tv shows have been watched (or recorded), what movies have been viewed, what books have been read. it's all good fun for obsessives like me. so, without further ado, here's a probably incomplete list of my favorite books* (in no particular order):

• house of leaves by mark danielewski - a strangely put together book, involving multiples layers of plot (author is writing for a young man who seems to be losing his mind and is providing often (seemingly) unrelated footnotes on a manuscript he found written by a crazy, possible nonexistent old man about a film that never existed about a house that never existed), footnotes, typesetting bordering on pretentious (until you bother to actually read for context) and a central mystery (a house that is bigger inside than outside) that is quite powerful
• the poisonwood bible by barbara kingsolver - the story of a missionary and his family told through the voices of several narrators (the missionary's wife and daughters, taking turns), a fascinating journey into africa and many social and politcal issues, not to mention a great family story and a memorable sequence involving natural destruction at the hands (so to speak) of an army of ants
• hearts in atlantis by stephen king - actually a group of interrelated stories (two novellas and three short stories), all dealing with vietnam (before, during and after) and the politics of the 60s and 70s, connected through a group of children and a violent incident from the past. brilliantly constructed, violently emotional, nothing like what most people would expect from king
• bag of bones by stephen king - one of king's many books about writing, the emotional core of this story (a widower falling in love with a young mother and her child even as he deals with a ghostly mystery and the sudden death of his wife) raises this above the others
• lolita by vladimir nabakov - a bit of poetry; it's amazing how nabakov (whose first language was russian) can do so well in english, with great imagery, evocative metaphor and a great story about obsession and love (not pedophilia, as you might expect)
• dune by frank herbert - the first of a series, a great treatise on politics buried in a richly detailed science fiction world
• god emperor of dune by frank herbert - the tale of a half worm, half man mad with power and those who would attempt to thwart his rule. the second and third book of the dune series seemed like flimsy little placeholders to me, adding to the overall story only a little, like there was a demand for sequels before herbert had ever envisioned any, but this fourth book has a richness that makes it stand beside the original.
• catcher in the rye by j d salinger - what to say about this one? there isn't much plot to speak of. it's all about the narrator and his aimlessness, his detestation of the world of adults. but that barely describes it
• to kill a mockingbird by harper lee - a brilliantly simple and deceptively complex story, about growing up, about secrets, racism, and so much more
• the adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain - above all, i always saw this one as being about the power of imagination to improve any situation
• crime and punishment by fyodor doystoevsky - a densely written novel about a young man determined to commit a crime and prove there don't have to be consequences
• 1984 by george orwell - a prescient look at the omnipresent media/government and the death of the individual
• insomnia by stephen king - another dense novel by king, this one focused on an old man who fins his insomnia gives him the ability to see beings that cut away the life force of those who die, leading into a supernatural struggle to stop a disaster, not to mention a back and forth debate about abortion, a little like the early chapters of king's tommyknockers gives us a serious debate about nuclear weapons
• replay by ken grimwood - a surprisingly powerful but fairly simple story about a man who gets to live his life over and over again, finding ways to improve upon what has come before, fix past mistakes and find happiness (if he can)
• ishmael by daniel quinn - one of those books that can change your life if you give it the chance. not really a novel but more a conversation about the state of the world and modern culture and where humanity has gone wrong in "growing up"
• my ishamel by daniel quinn - the sequel that continues the conversation, taking it in different directions and giving using a little more of a more novel-like structure
• it by stephen king - don't trust the miniseries, which, despite its pathetic ending, was still well made. this book is a seriously epic look at childhood and growing up and finding who you are as a grown up, not to mention the supernatural aspects, the allusions to numerous horror film staples and the unfilmable battle in the end, a great exercise in characterization
• ender's game by orson scott card - a classic science fiction novel about a brilliant boy destined for greatness, sent away to battle school to play at zero-g war and learn how to fight aliens, except that descripton makes it sound far too shallow
• speaker for the dead by orson scott card - the sequel to ender's game that brings ender into adulthood, fashions a brilliant alien world, gives us a disturbing and powerful family dynamic, a fantastic way of looking at death (and the life of the recently deceased) and, in my view, surpasses it's predecessor
• i know this much is true by wally lamb - take a simple tale of twin brothers, one schizophrenic and hospitalized, one whose life is falling apart and expand it into a detailed character study several hundred pages long, and you've got this book
• the story of b by daniel quinn - take quinn's angle on modern culture and focus it on religion and a character who is essentially the antichrist
• after dachau by daniel quinn - a deceptive metaphor about life focused on a woman who wakes one day to recall a life lived previously and who may provide a drastically different way of viewing the world
• lord of the flies by william golding - the simple tale of a group of planewrecked boys stranded on an island and letting go of the trappings of modern life only to fall prey to their own savage ways
• brave new world by aldous huxley - like 1984, this book seems more prescient than it seems a treatise on it's own present, about the way of the world to sedate us into conformity
• the sea came in at midnight by steve erickson - an eerily complex novel, moving forward and backward in time, shifting perspectives and narrators and looping around on itself so that, in a way, it's hard to be sure what it's all about
• from the corner of his eye by dean koontz - about the coincidence and interconnectedness of our lives, and also (contrary to what one might expect i would enjoy) about god and his place in life
• false memory by dean koontz - despite one glaring detail that bugged the hell out of me (and which i brought up to the author at a signing), this seemingly overlong novel about three people succumbing to the sudden onset of severe phobias turns out to be a fantastic exercise in characters, with one of the more powerful scenes i've ever read
• american gods by neil gaiman - about the gaudy faux religious trinkets and landmarks of modern america. though written by british gaiman, a strangely insightful look at american culture through the trappings of a weirdly supernatural plot
• the holy by daniel quinn - a look under the surface of america and the world, at strange goings on behind the scenes of the reality we know. a let down in the end (though not anywhere near as much as quinn's newcomer's guide to the afterlife was) but a great read anyway, with some great imagery
• the third chimpanzee by jared diamond - a look at what truly sets humans apart from other mammals and the other two chimpanzees (diamond's contention being that humans are just, well, the title says it all), with looks at the origins in other species of what has become in humans drug use and self desructive behavior, including the making of nuclear weapons
• guns, germs and steel by jared diamond - a richly detailed look at what makes different cultures different, from the availability of specific edible plants to the presence of large mammals, from continent to continent and how geography has shaped the evolution of culture
• hamlet by william shakespeare - a man going crazy after the death of his father at the hands of his uncle who's having an affair with his mother, or a man bent on revenge because his father's ghost demands it
• high fidelity by nick hornby - a book about lists and about men and about relationships, as the main character tracks down the five greatest break ups of his life to discover why his girlfriend recently left him
• about a boy by nick hornby - a man with the simplest life he can make for himself finds it complicated after he pretends to have a son in order to meet more interesting women than he might usually
• fever pitch by nick hornby - hornby's autobiograpy by way of an exploration of his obsession with soccer, told through anecdotal accounts of the games that figure in the major cornerstone events of his life
• into the great wide open by kevin canty - a relatively straightforward tale about two teens falling in love, complicated by their miserable lives outside of each other <

watchlist for yesterday:

• house "damned if you do" - though the tea was obvious, the humor in this episode, not to mention regular jabs at religion, was great
• veronica mars "an echolls' family christmas" - predictable ending with the poker game culprit but the why of it was a great mystyer and the stalker plot was done well with a fantastic ending, not to mention veronica's confrontation with jake kane
• ghost hunters - the evp wasn't too impressive this time, but it's refreshing in a way to have a couple episodes now where the team didn't really find much of anything. the approach of proving the science over the supernatural is a great new angle for a show like this
• the daily show - nothing special but it's the daily show, funny and great even at its worst
• south park "woodland critter christmas" - wrong in so many ways, like the best of south park's episodes. gotta love stan demanding that there's a point to this when he's stuck helping the mountain lion cubs learn how to perform abortions... for those of you who didn't see this, that must sound either disturbing or hilarious out of context

watchlist for today:

• zatoichi
• the door in the floor

* not limited to novels, obviously, as there are some plays or nonfiction works involved, though i've left comics out for now

a quiet protest?!
Mood:  incredulous

bush's inauguration celebration is going to cost some $40 million, not counting security costs. there will be nine balls (inlcuding a special one for the few soldiers we've bothered to let come home from iraq), a concert, a parade, fireworks and the swearing-in ceremony

and, an aside, did you know there's a joint congressional committee on inaugural ceremonies? i know that our culture loves its parties, but, seriously, we need a congressional committee for this kind of thing? from their website: "this website has been created to provide comprehensive information about presidential inaugurations past and present. it is part of our continuing effort to encourage all americans to appreciate and participate in the inaugural ceremony... it is our hope that this website will encourage you to become more involved in this important part of american history." who knew this was an important part of american history? raise your hands. then, hang your heads in shame, cause you are all stupid, stupid people. we don't need balls (permit the unfortunate pun). we don't need parades. we don't need parties. hell, we barely need the damn swearing-in; we all know the president lies for the rest of his four years, so why try to get an oath for this one day?

anyway, it's a big deal (apparently), the inauguration, lots of partying and parading and lots of money spent--gotta wonder how much people will be spending to travel to dc to see the whole shindig go down. bush will get a big celebration, all the gay-hating, abortion-despising folks who voted for him will get to grin all day cause they won, and screw the other half of the country (and the rest of the world, for that matter)

and, the best we can come up with is a quiet protest in which the participants don't even have to acknowledge one another as they turn their backs on bush as he parades past 'em. see turnyourbackonbush.org for the boring details. the protestors don't have to know one another (a useful detail, to be sure), don't have to wear pins or carry signs (a useful detail, since security can't herd them into a pen like they have tried at other events in recent years), and they don't have to acknowledge one another or even all participate at teh same time (while i like this, it certainly is not a useful protest, as there's no guarantee anyone will notice scattered folks turning around, and it probably won't disrupt anything)

and, it should be about disruption. they already know half of us don't like him. we've already turned our backs on him. doing it in a literal fashion isn't going to do a thing. blocking the streets and stopping the inaugural parade, locking down dc traffic for the day, storming the inaugural stage--those kinds of things will get some attention. it's all nice and good for us hermit types (like me) to think there are protests out there that won't involve us having to actually interact with others, but come on. this won't have an impact and ultimately, won't make us feel any better. you've got to create a spectacle, got to make life hard for the other guys. you've got to have signs ands tee shirts and pins and arm bands and you've got to parade through the streets, and damn the security forces who try to coral you out of the way. it doesn't have to be violent (though security will likely make it so), but it does have to be big, it does have to be active. none of this turning around crap. then, you'll just miss the spectacle they've got going

watchlist for yesterday:

• collateral - while i rather liked this film, and it made we want to watch heat again, the cell phone not working at the end pissed me off. it's too common a suspense trick now, to have the cell phone not work. and this was in downtown los angeles; i could be wrong, but i've never heard of any cell problems in the fucking middle of los angeles. max could've just stolen the cell phone closer to the building if you wanted to leave it working until then (obviously, he had to find the cell phone cause he (and we) needed him to call here for reasons i won't spoil here)
• unlocking the da vinci code - the shortest and the most boring of the three da vinci code documentaries i've watched in the past week or so, and not just cause it was reiterating stuff from the other two
• babylon 5 "no retreat, no surrender" - up to this climax of season four, rewatching the series with the kids, and the themes of this show's big revolution seem more relevant now than when the show was made
• the rebel billionaire - taped most of this (sarah's psychology final altered the already complicated tuesday night schedule a bit), haven't watched it yet
• amaxing race 6 - jonathan is an abusive asshole (even the host, who tends to stay disconnected from the players, seemed fed up) and kendra is a stuck up, rude bitch, and too bad for the old folks. i think i'm rooting for lori and bolo at this point. didn't expect that
• house - taped, haven't watched yet
• veronica mars - taped, haven't watched yet
• the daily show - funny stuff. loved the thing about the guy suing the muscular dystrophy association for not paying him a million dollars. guest and interview were a little boring

watchlist for today:

• a movie from blockbuster, not sure what
• the door in the floor, maybe
• jeopardy
• ghost hunters
• south park, maybe
• the daily show

tomorrow (maybe): "the season of lists" begins

conner must've done it
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: kids watching dora the explorer

you know one of the more disturbing aspects of the scott peterson trial?

apparently, your cell phone calls can be tracked (by location) after the fact. they had evidence of scott's calls while he was on his fishing trip, tracking him on his trip home. i knew calls could be triangulated while in progress, but i'd not heard anything of being able to track them after the fact. i suppose, if it's a wide open area with scattered cell towers, maybe they could tell which towers covered which calls, but seriously, if you're up to anything untoward, don't use your cell phone. (and this from evidence in scott's favor)

as for other things:

• laci's stepfather went fishing the same time scott did, and in a more secluded spot (and apparently, no one "plan b"ed his ass). yet, it's supposed to be strange that scott went fishing after it was "too cold" to go golfing. we're supposed to think fishing on christmas eve (nevermind that technically, it's not christmas eve until the sun goes down) is the craziest thing ever
• not caring (which is a debatable assessment of scott peterson's attitude) if your wife is dead is not illegal (yet)
• cheating on your wife is not evidence of being willing to murder her. contrary to what the bible might imply or say, one "sin" is not equal to another. being a bad person, however unlikable, does not make one prone to doing horrible things. having options on your day off (fishing or golfing) doesn't make you a privileged, arrogant son of a bitch (though scott could very well be one)
• prior to the day laci died, her mother (who says they were very close and shared things of importance) hadn't seen a thing to make her think her daughter's marriage was not a happy one
  • an extramarital affair doesn't even necessarily prove a marriage isn't a happy one
• police tracking dogs had no interest in scott's boat, where laci supposedly would have spent several hours (either already dead or still alive) before being dumped in the bay
• you know, my wife's hair is all over the place. i think i'll stick some in some pliers just in case she dies, so everyone can assume i did it

it's a bit pathetic, the cheering and whatnot, folks so happy that he got the death penalty. of course, this is california, where he might not ever get executed, and i've heard death row is nicer than a general population prison, so there's that at least. and, conviction on circumstantial evidence (and hardly any of that) has got to be good grounds for appeal. so, keep on cheering if you like. keep on with the bloodthirsty cries for death, for scott to fry for not having remorse for something you can't even prove he did. hell, he should fry just for not being that outwardly emotional. i mean, that's just unnatural, right?

the lesson to be learned: if you go anywhere without someone who you might be accused of having a reason to murder, keep all your receipts and have affidavits with you for witnesses to sign at each and every stop. you never know when the media will decide you're worth headlines (and thus, worth harsh penalty despite the evidence)

no blog entry today, seriously

there's only so much failure one can take, and when you start out with low self esteem, there's only so much farther down you can go before you just have to focus your attention on something else and give up certain dreams or risk psychological self destruction or death. you can write and write and write until the cows come home (and i don't even own any cows) and that won't make anyone read any of it. hell, it won't even make any of it worth reading. all the product will just get filed away with all the rest, to linger in memories of dreams of publication that need to stop meaning something

thing is, i actually think i can write, when i bother to try (which isn't often enough anymore). but, it doesn't matter cause no matter how much i write, be it in comic form or blog form or prose fiction, i haven't a clue how to convince anyone else to care outside of my wife

it occurs to me, though, that i'm doing something that i've complained about others--notably our government and the scott peterson haters--doing. there isn't actually any evidence that my writing isn't worth anyone's time. the fault is all my own in my lack of ability to "sell" it. but, i don't "sell" it to people, i don't have an audience, so i get to thinking my material must be horrible because otherwise wouldn't an audience magically show up? like, if we can't find evidence of weapons of mass destruction, then we must assume they are hidden, if we can't prove scott peterson didn't do it, we must assume he is still hiding the evidence of his guilt, if i can't prove that there are people out there who might read my stuff if they'd ever even get the chance to read it, then those people must not exist and i must give up completely and devote all my time to what i do best... which, apparently, is watching television and cooking, not a good combination when i've been wanting to lose more weight of late

it doesn't have to be logical to get an obsessive like me to latch onto it and live by it, you know...

innocent until proven guilty? or until we don?t like you

no physical evidence links scott peterson to his wife?s death (hell, no physical evidence can conclusively say how exactly she died). but, of course, he?s guilty. he?s a philanderer, and he ordered porn channels after his wife?s death. he cheated on her when she was alive and further defiled her memory by masturbating while she decayed. how dare he

christian nation that we are, who?s surprised that we?d condemn this man to a guilty verdict? one sin is equal to another in the eyes of the lord. if scott is an adulterer, then surely he is also a murderer, nevermind the evidence. can?t we just know that he?s guilty and leave it at that? i mean, it?s not like he is famous, a sports star or black, so we can safely assume guilt based on gut feelings, right? we don?t need no stinkin? evidence. evidence is for the bleeding heart liberals of the united nations and the aclu. we don?t need that kind of qualification required for conviction. we don?t need proof. hell, the fact that scott can?t prove he didn?t do it is plenty of reason to assume he?s hiding all the real evidence still, to this day

that is the logic we used against saddam, isn?t it? we can?t find the evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but as long as he can?t prove he destroyed them, he must be hiding them. as long as scott can?t prove with indisputable video evidence and the testimony of a million witnesses that he was not at the scene of the crime (not that we even know where that is, of course), we have to assume he was there and is guilty

and, assuming guilt, mustn?t we jump straight into sentencing him to death? there?s no need to incarcerate him forever. i mean, we think he killed his wife and her unborn baby. so, let?s kill him and move on to the next big public trial, be it the blake trial or whatever sports celebrity decides to rape or decapitate someone next. let?s move on already. stop with the parading of witnesses who don?t even believe us when we say scott killed his wife and child. stop parading witnesses before us to convince us that it would be bad to deprive them of a loved one. and, really, no matter what you do, do not dare suggest that the death penalty is ever inhumane or immoral or that it won?t fix everything for the family of the victim?remember, laci and the baby will magically come to life once the death sentence is carried out; i mean, don?t we all remember the day mcveigh was executed and all those innocent children killed in oklahoma city rose from the grave and rejoined their living families? it brings a tear to my eye just thinking of it?

now, if we could just kill osama bin laden already so the thousands killed at the world trade center and the pentagon would be resurrected to go on with their lives, just like iraq is the peaceful eden it once was long ago now that saddam is dead? (oh wait, he?s not dead yet. there goes that theory)

no entry today
Mood:  don't ask

you know what's worse than being sick?

being sick when it's cold out and today is laundry day (already postponed and unavailable for further postponement)

weird thing is, mecicine i got at ralphs this morning, after getting (and passing) the smog check retest (yes, it's been an extra busy, extra miserable morning, thanks for noticing)--i can actually feel it working. in another hour i might feel just fine for heading to launderland... except, i need to go before then if lunch is to happen anywhere near lunchtime... or i could go after lunch...

but, to make a stupid story short, i don't (right now) have the mental acuity to complain about politics or pop culture or what have you, and any sharpness i manage to get in the next few hours will be occupied with me not falling apart completely (not to mention looking after a couple kids)

anyway, watchlist:

jeopardy
• lost
• ghost hunters
• good eats or south park if i'm in the mood
• the daily show

the cookie monster, insurgents and teenage sex
Mood:  don't ask

first things first: (WASHINGTON (AP) - Leaders from Iraq, Jordan and Senegal paraded through the White House Monday morning. By afternoon, President Bush was hosting Elmo and the Cookie Monster at a children's holiday party...) and, here, i thought my sesame street blog entry was all made up

second: stop pretending emanuel goldstein... er, osama bin laden is still important. clearly, the war on iraq is the only war going on and has always been the only war. the so-called "insurgents" have always been our enemy and always will be...

until we kill them all and move on

third: we must keep teaching abstinence. children need to learn that it is wrong to give in to sexual feelings. the sooner they learn that, the better control they will have later in life (perhaps in fighting off certain attractions to their own gender), not to mention little chance of getting any STDs or getting pregnant... unless of course, god feels like getting himself another immaculate conception (he has been celibate for quite a while and might be missing that action after two thousand years; there's only so many times he can still get off on watching his priests molesting little boys). barring immaculate conception the sequel, we must trust teenagers to just not have sex. surely, it will be easier for them to completely ignore some of the strongest biological imperatives in their bodies than it would be for them to navigate their way around condoms. and, needless to say, fornication and premarital sex still qualify as sins and surely the idea of burning in hell for eternity will deter any teen from having sex (cause that system has worked so well so far)

and, it's ok to exaggerate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of condoms. there's no need to be objective and honest with children when the possibility of them having sex is on the line. we need less honesty and more propaganda, anything to be sure that teens will NOT HAVE SEX

except, of course, teens have always been having sex, will always have sex (and not in the way that the insurgents have always been the enemy). isn't it nice when we try to stop things that have always been? and, isn't it even nicer that we try by instituting more rules and more lies?

we could try assuming that the "rules" of the past will be broken, cause they've always been broken and stop acting like we can change human nature through adminstration and punishment and teach people to use simple precaution. it's not a choice of abstinence or abortion. there are many in between choices. and, contrary to popular belief, not a one of them is a sin

watchlist:

• last night
  • audition - a nicely creepy and fucked up film involving a fantastically abrupt change of pace and graphic (though mostly just out of frame) torture and at least one good scare (read: startle) moment
  • arrested development - funny stuff with the coffin mishap, the confusion about ann, buster's costume, the charlie brown motif and the return of the slut shirt
  • the daily show - puppy juice!
• tonight
  • jeopardy
  • rebel billionaire
  • amazing race 6
  • house
  • the daily show
  • and i've got the pink panther to watch on dvd (the life and death of peter sellers got me interested. i liked that hbo film, though the ending was odd and the lack of aging with his kids bugged me. i loved the moments when characters stepped out of the movie to comment on sellers)
  
  
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nabisco: slave to puppet w
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: green day - american idiot

i probably should have taken the car to get a smog check retest this morning. but, i just didn't feel like it. thing is, i don't feel like doing much of anything this morning. not sure why. i'm not tired. i slept plenty last night and as i loaded up this blog page to write a new entry, i put my mood as "sharp"

then, i had some crackers as a snack

clearly, we can assume crackers destroy sharpness. and, nabisco is clearly a supporter of the Right and the current administration in this country, and they are drugging their crackers to keep us wannabeheroes and pseudorevolutionaries down. they get us preoccupied with online research into the march 22 movement in 1968 france and we drift from there into the situationist international site (again) and from there to the struggle site and the red & black revolution magazine and i get to listening to american idiot and suddenly it's like and hour past when i expected to have today's entry finished and i've not even begun

but can i really blame nabisco for my own lack of initiative? i mean, clearly it is the american way to blame everyone else for all your problems. i've still got an old non sequitur comic on the message board here by my desk with the big corporate ceo saying "we have got to get in step with the times, gentlemen, and find a way to make us out to be victims of something." and, that's the way it is, isn't it? everything is someone else's fault. everything is always someone else's fault. never ours

comes in handy when we want to get a war on. pick a country out of a random list, drop some bombs and come up with an epxlanation on the fly whenever someone asks--doesn't matter if it's the same explanation each time, either--and no one will complain, cause they will get a nice feeling of something actually being done. nevermind figuring out if it's a good thing or not, just that it's being done at all is good enough. they don't really want to know why, they don't want to get involved. and, they certainly don't want to be held in any way responsibile for it...

except half of us do, apparently, cause puppet w will be around for a while longer, won't he? so, fuck discussions of responsibility, fuck discussions of explanations. who cares? the killing will continue. the bombs will keep on dropping. "9-11" will remain on the tips of political tongues for a good time to come. and osama bin laden will remain free cause what does it matter if he is or isn't? hussein was caught (aguably not by us, despite the wonderful staging of that whole spiderhole incident) and what has come of that? the war didn't end. peace didn't break out. the insurgents didn't suddenly realize that they were wrong and we were right and repent all their sins against us

of course, the world didn't end either, did it? it still goes on, and will keep on for a while. despite the destruction of certain elements of the environment, despite overpopulation, we will not be destroying the world itself anytime soon. we'll just be making a lot more of her people miserable. but, that's ok, as long as it isn't us. we will still have our sitcoms and our police procedural dramas, our law & order and our csi and we'll have basic cable and pay cable for those shows that smaller groups of us like, so we can pretend that we cater to everybody, so shut up and sit down and watch your niche's shows and leave the mainstream to sort itself out, let the fcc do it's damn job and eat your crackers

always eat your crackers

the testing ground
Mood:  on fire

representative gerald allen of alabama wants to ban novels with gay characters, "to protect children from the 'homosexual agenda.'" abc affiliates got scared and didn't show saving private ryan for fear of the fcc. the united states defense department reported that muslims actually don't "hate our freedom" but rather our policies. and, when only half the country wants you, apparently that implies a mandate from the lord... and the authority to do whatever the fuck you want

it's been promised that there will be no draft yet draft offices around the country have been dusting off their desks and cabinets, readying for the possibility that one could be "necessary." thing is, what would make one "necessary?" there would have to be something catastrophic, some huge attack on our country that cost a lot of lives and captured the rest of us in its tragedy... nothing like that could ever happen while bush is in charge, could it? surely, our intelligence agencies are smart enough to stop any attempts to, say, commandeer planes and crash them into buildings, just for an example. surely they won't be too busy only finding information that will support the administration (cause, we all know, objectivity has gone the way of the geneva convention and the dodo)

and, speaking of the geneva convention, the red cross says we're torturing (or, officially, we're using "psychological and physical coercion that [is] 'tantamount to torture'") the detainees at guantanamo. doctors have even "been assisting interrogators by providing them with information about the mental health of inmates and their vulnerabilities." isn't that nice? we've not only got half the voters behind the administration, raising jinogist fists and flying flags and affixing bumper stickers, we've got doctors (that is, actual educated, scientific-minded doctors) siding with all of it. of course, not all doctors will be liberal or against the "war on terror" or against torture for that matter, but at least we could hope they would be, don't you think? it would be better than this, what the red cross calls a "flagrant violation of medical ethics"

meanwhile, the nominee to replace ashcroft as attorney general, alberto gonzalez, has said that "Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners" has been rendered "obsolete" and "some of its provisions" have been rendered "quaint." that is, he's okay with torture, as long as those we are torturing are the "enemy" of course. and, we can define anyone as an enemy if we like. if we call them "enemy combatants" we can detain them however long we like and do whatever we think we have to do to make them give us all the information and cooperation we want. and, that's just what we're doing at guantanamo

and, now, we can use all the information we gain through torture as admissable evidence. so says principal deputy associate attorney general brian boyle. when attorneys argued some of the 550--that's the official count, at least--detainess at guantanamo were only being held because of evidence acquried through torture, boyle shrugged it off and argued that they have no constitutional rights. no shit, they have no constitutional rights, but there is common decency to take into account... oh wait, common decency might also allow gays to marry or unprepared mothers to abort or vegetative women to die. so, the geneva convention is quaint and obsolete and the enemy combatants don't qualify for basic civil rights. so, of course, we can torture them. hell, if they prove after a good amount of torture to have no useful information, we should probably just kill them so we don't have to feed them anymore. of course, then we might have to replace them with the red cross personnel who dare to tell people about what we're doing--surely, that sort of objective reporting would qualify as traitorous these days, wouldn't it?

thing is, purposefully or not, guanatanamo is just a testing ground for civil rights abuses to come right here in our "homeland"

anyone who thinks otherwise is probably selling something... or already in on the big conspiracy, not that that isn't something being sold to us every day

so, what's the cut off, anyway? at what point do we stop rambling in our blogs and arguing back and forth on message boards and stand up? when does the revolution begin?

and, to think, after watching the da vinci code decoded last night, i had intended to talk about christ today

watchlist:

• spiderman 2
• jeopardy
• degrassi the next generation