Wake Up Nerd Culture, You're A Sham

(one quick note, this is in no way a response to Elfarmy's recent post, as I've been planning on writing this for days)

"I think when people talk about nerdiness what they're really talking about are smart people who are trying to think hard about the world. And I don't think that's an insult, I think that's a great thing."
---John Green

I have spoken very often to friends of mine(and nowhere near enough on this blog) about what I like to call "country club mentality". Country Club Mentality, as I define it, is when you decide that whatever religion or country or state or church or group you happen to be part of is the best because it's the best and only people who are part of whatever it is you are part of are great people. "God Bless The USA" "Only Christians Go To Heaven" "When people talk about nerdiness what they're really talking about are smart people who are trying to think hard about the world" Ectera Ectera

I have....problems with this mindset and, in fact, I view it as the cause of a great many of our society's problems. John Lydon(or Johnny Rotten as he used to be called) once said that "National Pride Leads To War And Hate, Nothing Else, Planet Earth All The Way"(you'll be seeing that quote again) and while I don't 100% agree with that I certainly agree with it to a point.

And now we come to the "Nerd Movement" and where I start alienating a great many of my readers. It has become cool to be uncool. People are changing who they are so as to appear that they refuse to change who they are. Not Fitting in has become the new fitting in. And I have had enough of it.

A large number of people of my generation have decided that they are nerds and, because they are nerds, they must like certain things. All these so called nerds love John Green, Youtube Based Musicians, and Joss Whedon. They all do, all of them. When every member of a group loves the same things you don't have a group of people who are outcasts you have a fraternity.

That John Green quote is one of the finest examples of CCM(Country Club Mindset) that I have ever read. All nerds like to think intelligently about the world and that's the defining characteristic of the group? Really? To me that is not only ludicrous but offensive. Jocks can be just as smart and think just as hard about the world as nerds. Geeks, Punk Rockers, Emos, they can all be smart and think about the world. And someone who has as much sway with as many people as John Green has should know better than to play into age old stereotypes. He should have known better.

In the day of yore everyone agreed that Kings and Queens had the right to rule because God gave them the right to rule. They ruled because they were supposed to rule. We use almost the exact same logic today. Nerds are the best, because they're the smartest. Why are they the smartest? Because they're nerds. Logicians call that a circular argument and is a logical fallacy. But that is the thought process that CCM is based on. We're the best because we're the freaking best. USA USA, Won't you be a nerdfighter like me?

I am a firm believer in being diverse. Just because I listen to Punk Rock doesn't mean that I can't listen to showtunes. I like punk and I like showtunes and if you have a problem with that, that's your problem. Just because I watch the occasionally reality show doesn't mean I can't enjoy Doctor Who or Parks and Recreation or The West Wing. Just because I love Inception doesn't mean I can't love Frost/Nixon or True Grit. I am a firm believer in being a cultural omnivore(a term taken from one Linda Holmes on NPRs Monkey See.) When you devote yourself entirely to one thing or one style or one genre you miss out on all this awesome stuff in different styles and genres. That's why the argument "Oh Reading is so awesome, way better than watching that stupid television" strikes me as being very uniformed. Books are a medium and television is a medium, to say that one is better than the other just because some things created in the other are garbage is silly. Have there been mind-numbingly stupid tv shows? Yes, but have you read some of the YA books being published today?

Every medium, every group, ever organization has merits and disadvantages, which is why being exclusively in one group or organization or medium is never a good idea. Openness creates diversity and diversity is where greatness comes from.

I don't see the point in being in a group in which EVERYONE thinks the same things. Walk up to almost any nerdfighter and ask them their opinion of "Once More With Feeling" and they will, almost to a man, rave about it till the cows come home. Where are the nay sayers? Where is the independent thought? It, to me, is the same as when Christians identify themselves first and foremost as Christians. They listen to Christian music, watch Kirk Cameron Movies, and read inspirational books they are closing themselves off to the world and Nerds are doing the exact same thing. And it makes me mad.

In which I make all my nerd readers very mad

So in nerd culture there are certain people who are considered to be Geek Gods and beyond reproach. These include JK Rowling, John Green, and Joss Whedon. Mr. Whedon is a director and screenwriter who has created such tv shows as Firefly, Dollhouse, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And I have a bit of a problem with him, or at least the perception of him as being flawless and a genius.

Let me be clear, before I go on, that I do consider myself a Whedon fan. I do enjoy most of everything he's ever done. However, I find some problems with his work. I shall focus on primarily Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it being his longest running and best known work.

Buffy suffers from a key flaw: It is totally Monster of The Week. By that I mean, every episode has the main character facing up against a monster and that's what the episode is based around. I cannot recall an episode in which there is no monster. To me it gets a little monotonous. What I care about, why I watch the show, is the characters and their relationships. But often the relationships take a back seat to the giant(and often awesome) fight scenes. Which leads me into another problem I have: the fight scenes.

Now I love me a good fight scene, don't get me wrong, but here's the thing about Buffy....The title character is a vampire slayer. Crazy I know, but part of her slaying awesomeness is that she can ram a stick through a vampire's chest and kill it. So, the natural thing to do when you see a vampire and you can do that is to take out the stake right off and take that vamp down. But instead, every single time, she beats the dude up and then stakes him. This seems unnecessarily time consuming and strenuous and takes me out of the show.

One other problem I have, and this goes most to Whedon then any of the others, is some of the plot solutions are just flat out silly. For example: In the first three seasons Buffy has a vampire love interest named Angel(keep in mind that this is eight years before Twilight) and in the end of Season 3 he leaves to star in a spinoff series. Whedon(I assume him, being the showrunner) decided to bring in another vampire, the awesomely fantastic Spike. A great decision, one that made the show way better. But the way it was done was so.......I don't know, Bad. It was just bad. Spike had appeared before in the series as a villain but they wanted to make a semi-hero and thus needed a reason for him to stop randomly killing people. So, in the episode where he comes back, a secret government organization plants a chip in his brain that makes it impossible for him to hurt people. That is just simply lazy writing and, again, pulled me out of the show.

So that is my rant for the day.

Book Review: Boyfriends With Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez

Boyfriends with Girlfriends is Alex Sanchez's latest entry into the Genre of LGBT teen fiction. It is about a guy(who is gay) and his friend who is a girl(who is Bi) meeting up with another guy(who is bi) and his friend who is a girl(who is gay) and their romantic struggles.

If you love David Levithan but wish he was Less Poetic, More Preachy, Less Romantic, More Sex-Obsessed, More Obnoxious, and Less Original then Boyfriends With Girlfriends is the book for you. I'm not sure I can explain to you the extent to which I do not like this book but I think I might be able to show you.

I stopped reading about a fourth of the way into the book after a scene in which one of the main characters sleeps with another boy, because he can. That's the only reason, he wants to see what it'd be like. I'm not even sure that the other guy was gay, it was weird. Their being in 7th grade makes it even weirder, more uncomfortable, and mo
re gratuitous. Call me sheltered and naive but I don't think that many or really any 7th graders serf adult websites and sleep with each other in the middle of school.

Essentially, all of the book that I read can be summed up by saying "Bisexuality is real" that is the whole point. The author keeps pounding the point and pounding the point and it gets really annoying after a while.

There is this one part where the girl(the one who's bi) is talking about how she thinks she's straight but she has crushes on girls all the time, had a romantic dream about a girl, and whatever. But she still thinks she's straight. But then she meets this girl(the one who's gay) and she's never felt this way before and things with her boyfriend start breaking down and IT"S LOVE AND IT"S BI, WHICH, BY THE WAY, IS REAL AND GREAT AND FINE AND WONDERFUL, IT"S LOVE GOSH DARN IT!!!!!

There is also the problem of the narration, which says Exactly and Explicitly what each character is thinking and feeling, there is no nuance. I am not a huge fan of flowery writing but I do enjoy a clever turn of phrase or a poetic observation, this book is bare bones, bare bare bones. "Character X sees Character Y walking towards him, "He's really cute, especially his ears and his nose" thinks Character X." is about the level of this writing. Levithan is a master of the phrasing. His books make you feel things very deeply and he can just come out with observations in his writing that just describe your whole life in ten words. Sanchez either does not or can not do that and the book suffers because of it.

When one is writing a romantic novel one must appeal to the romanticism and sentiment inside the reader, Sanchez simply doesn't do that. I could never really care about his two male heroes because they were 1) Total Clichés and 2) Obnoxiously written. Their dialogue physically hurts me and I don't like them really at all.

If you are looking for a book about Bisexuality(Which is Real and Great and Fine and Romantic and Did I mention it's Real?) and Homosexuality I would recommend Boy Meets Boy by Levithan(who I seem to keep talking about) which is everything this book is not:charming, romantic, moving, and well written.

1/4 Stars

Rage like you have never seen it before

Ok quick background on this quote. In recent weeks four gay teenagers have killed themselves primarily due to Homophobia. So a gay rights group tried to get everyone to wear purple to show that acceptance. So the VP of an Arkansas School district took to facebook and posted a rant about how he was only going to wear purple if every gay person died. He then went on to say in his comments section.

"I like that fags can't procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other AIDS and die."

and

"Being a fag doesn't give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then don't tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that **** to yourself."

He also said that he would disown any child of his who was gay. But none of them would because he had a good Christian lifestyle or something.

Ok, Now I am strongly resisting the urge to scream and rant, because I think that his comments speak for themselves but.....My God. This man talks about living a Christian lifestyle then he says things like that? What was it that Jesus said.....oh that's right "Love your Neighbor as yourself."

For those of you who are regular readers of the blog you will remember I wrote and posted a song a few weeks back called For Fred Phelps in which I referenced the Elvis Costello song Tramp the Dirt Down. If you go back in the LR archives and read it while mentally making it about this guy you have my feelings.

This man is not only a bigot and a fool but he is also dangerous. We have an epidemic of Gay suicides especially among teenagers. When a 13 year old hangs himself after years of bullying we've got a problem. When another teen shots himself in the head we've got a problem. When a Gay college student is forced out of the closet and jumps off a bridge we've got a problem. And Mr. Vice President of the School Board I am terribly sorry if their homosexuality puts you out but I think that it puts them out more. And honestly sir I think that you are a sad excuse for a human being and you should not be allowed to join the PTA yet alone the school board. Children are dying and you sit high and mighty passing judgment saying how you will only wear purple if all gay people kill themselves. Elvis Costello was right I want to live long enough to tramp the dirt down.

Oh no you dinit

I am outraged. And before I begin to tell you what's so outrageous I must thank Elfarmy for showing me what to be outraged about and it worked because now I'm outraged.

I am outraged because NPR, which I now dub Nazi Plutocrat Radio, has committed an unspeakable atrocity. They had persecuted a innocent man and stripped him of his god given 1st amendment rights simply because they didn't like his political beliefs.

I am speaking of Juan Williams(who like the great martyr Rachel Corrie was driven over by a bulldozer, the bulldozer of the liberal biased media) who simply stated his balanced logical and reasonable view and Narcissist Paranoid Radio was scared that he would challenge their secret agenda and so they fired him.

But no, we will not stand for it. Already a public backlash has started against Name-calling Poor-loving Radio. Sarah Palin has called for the cutting off of all government funding for NPR and musicians are beginning to record protest songs sticking up for Mr. Williams. Roger Ailes has been public about his support for Mr. Williams 1st Amendment rights.

How about we look at what he said.

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

How about I flip the sarcasm switch to off right now and address Juan Williams personally.

Mr. Williams you are the former host of one of my favorite NPR programs and I am sure you are an intelligent man but I feel that your comments, setting aside the prejudicial nature of it, don't make any sense.

What exactly do you mean by Muslim garb? Are you referring to the burkahs worn by the women? If not what else are you referring to? Also how does wearing religious paraphernalia mean that they identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims? If I am Jewish and I wear a a kippah does that mean that I am defining myself first and foremost as a Jew? If I am a Sikh and I wear a turban does that mean that I am defining myself first and foremost as a Sikh? If I am Christian and I wear a cross necklace does that mean that I am defining myself first and foremost as a Christian?

(I shall now address my readers again)

The reason that NPR fired him is because "News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts..." They have a perfect right to fire a analyst if they think that he is no longer credible. It is their right. It is his right to say what he wants and it is their right to not like it and fire him accordingly.

If he was working in an office where his political beliefs had nothing to do with his work it would be different but the fact that his political beliefs or lack there of are the cornerstone of his job it is appropriate for his employer to fire him for his statement.

And Sarah Palin saying that we need to cut funding to NPR because they fired a correspondent really really bothers me. She is proposing crippling an institution that has been providing the public with information for 40 years just to score some political points. She truly appears to have no morals at all.

In which I get very angry and post some lyrics

I wrote the song after I watched a report of Westborough Baptist Church which pickets soldiers funerals because gay people live in America(don't ask me how they worked that out) and a different report on a gay teenager who killed himself and in that report someone said that he killed himself because he lived an unhealthy lifestyle and that we had encouraged people to be gay. When the interviewer pointed out that there are going to be gay teens no matter what you do thus we have to make them feel accepted the man(who was from the Family Research council I believe) said that we don't have gay kids over here and straight kids over there, and actually yeah we do. Gay people do just kinda happen the same way straight people happen, they're born. I also watched a different report in which the Republican candidate for governor of New York(an upstanding fellow who emails out racist and pornographic videos and believes that we should put welfare recipients in prison work camps) said that he didn't march in gay pride march this year but his opponent did and what example does that set for the youth? But hey he's tolerant, he believes in live and let live, but he doesn't want his kids being taught that homosexuality was valid or on par with heterosexuality. And then everyone clapped. Yeah. So here is For Fred Phelps(or as its alternate title is) In which I call fred phelps a bunch of names

For Fred Phelps

Hey freddy
you stinking freaking homophobe
how do you feel
how do you live with yourself

how does it feel to
spread you disease
your disease of hate
and monstrosity

Elvis Costello was right
I want to live long enough
to Tramp The Dirt down

how do you feel
when you see that a gay
teenager has hung himself
because of your hate

how do you feel when you see a dead soldier
his parents are weeping
and you're saying he's
going to the devil

Elvis Costello was right
I want to live long enough
to Tramp The Dirt Down

How does it feel
to know that you ignore Jesus
who you claim
to worship and obey

Jesus said love
your neighbor
not picket at their
children's funeral

Elvis Costello was right
I want to live long enough
to tramp the dirt down

How does it feel to
live on your own
surrounded by a world
that is moving past your prejudice

Elvis Costello was right
I want to live long enough
to tramp the dirt down

How do you sleep at night
when you see what
you've caused
what you feed

Elvis Costello was right
I want to live long enough
to Tramp the dirt down

lyrics of the week

I wrote this song a few weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to posting it and I kind of forgot about it, until I read today that a State Representative from my home state sent out an email to other politicians in which he called gay people "Queers" and "Fruitloops". So here is

Homophobia must die
punk

no capo


You can't get married
because
if I see two people
living together
who share the same gender
it will hurt my relationships

so go on you merry way
and don't you come back till your normal

Homophobia must die
Homophobia must die

We're fighting a war
overseas
and we're turning people out
if they want to be
openly who they are
because we can't have no gays in our army

so go on your merry way
and don't you come back till your normal

Homophobia must die
homophobia must die

bridge

there are those
who equate
being gay
with being a polygamist
or a pedophile
but that is based in fear
and hate
against what you don't understand

Homophobia must die
Homophobia must die

In which I am so freaking angry

Warning: The Following Post Contains Graphic Ranting Which May Offend members of the mild-mannered public

Alright so I'm mad. A new poll came out which says that 1/3 of Americans believe that President Obama is a Christian, down from 1/2 last year. And 1/5 of our wonderful nation think that Obama is a Muslim. A different poll has 47% for Christian and 24% for Muslim. Also 61% are opposed to the "Ground Zero" "Mosque" with 26% favoring it.

Soooooo, It is now official: We are total freaking idiots. I'm glad that's wrapped up, we can all go home. Ta-ta.

Seriously, did aliens visit the participants in that poll and steal their brains? I try very hard to be accepting of people with different beliefs and opinions than me, but this time I just can't. This is so ridicules and so crazy and so dangerous that it's time for me to stand up. We have people talking in the Senate of The United States of America about repealing the 14th Amendment! We have a law in Arizona that is blatantly racist!

We don't like Obama because he hasn't done the stuff he said he was going to so we're going to vote in a bunch of people who totally disagree with everything he's ever said. Does that Make sense? Heck no, but we're Americans, We don't think we just do!

None of this is Obama's fault. It is the Republicans who have perverted the Constitution so that you need 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. Their new motto is "No. I don't care what the question is, my answer is no" or as James McMurtry said "A Little Bit of Hope is a Dangerous thing"

In some ways I hope that the Republicans do win back the Congress this year so every day, every freaking day I can trash them. I will desimate them and I hope the Democrats do too. They won't be able to pass a single thing. But then Fox News will say that they're being "Obstructionists who are un-American". We just can't win.

I hope, I really hope that the American people will see sense and ignore the storyline that the media is creating and vote for the people who they agree with. The people who they think will do the best job.

Here are some lyrics to get my battle against the right started. These are not some of my most sophisticated lyrics but they get my point across.

Burn The Flag

Hey yeah

hey yeah we just got into congress
hey yeah it's time to rule the nation
it's time to destroy the nation

hey yeah it's time to fill our pockets
let's forget what our founders would have wanted
let's forget about what they would have wanted

let's shove our own insane agenda
down the throat of the USA

Hey let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and torch the white house
let's get together and topple the monuments

let's get together and build big bonfire
take the constitution
and toss it on it

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

hey yeah we are republicans the GOP
and we don't really care about economics
unless we can't fill our pockets

let's shove our own insane agenda
down the throat of the USA

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

come on let's go find old Maddison
dig em up stick em' on
a pole and burn him

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

I am a talk show host
and I don't care what I say
I just want people to like me

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

let's shove our own insane agenda
down the throat of the USA

let's get together and burn the flag

In Which I Strongly Object To Those Islamist Trying To Take Away My Rights

So I don't know about you, but I am shocked and appalled about this whole-Mosque-at-Ground-Zero fiasco and I have decided that it is time to speak up! These people who attacked us on September 11th want to shove their religious opinions down our throats! I mean what possible reason could there be to build a Muslim Education Center in the vicinity of Ground Zero? What possible reason?!

On September 11th, 2001 we were attacked by people who hate and wish to destroy our valuable freedoms. We need to let Ground Zero stand as a monument to future generations that our freedom was challenged but we held firm. But we cannot have this monument if we allow a religious faith to build a cultural center two blocks from where our freedoms were attacked, that's like spitting on the Bill of Rights!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm tolerant, I'm open, and I'm a big fan of religious freedom as long as it doesn't involve anyone I disagree with doing anything that I don't like! I mean seriously! First we let them build an education center and then what?! They'll want to vote? They'll want to be able to be able to run for office? And then where will we be? Muslims running the Government, out goes separation between Church and State!

Classic Post: Attention America, I'm about to be very unpatriotic

Like many other people I went to see fireworks with my family on the 4th, and I realised something....Fireworks are a big waste of money!! We spent approximately $193 Million to import fireworks from China. For what? Some pretty lights in the sky? Famvin reported that 9.1 million people died of hunger last year. Bread for the World reports that a child dies of hunger every five seconds. And we are spending $193 million on fireworks.

I like fireworks as much as anyone, but what purpose do they serve? They are pretty, but didn't China prove last year during the Olympics that CGI can work just as well? Let me hit you with some more statistics, God I love the Internet. The National Institute of Health reports that 1500 people die of cancer everyday in the US alone. America is ranked worst in preventable deaths, with 100.7 in 100,000 people died last year, according to commonsense. To make a long story short, people are dying and we are spending millions to set off pretty lights! People are dying, and no one seems to care!!

Alright I'm getting carried away, but come on! When you look at the figures it is hard to argue that it is worth it. But if you do think that it is worth it, then please tell me. Comment and tell me why you think that way. I will accept your opinion even though I might disagree with you. All I ask you to do is think about it, nothing more.

----July 5th 2009

In which I am filled with a righteous anger

I love Agatha Christie and I love the theater so when a friend of mine told me that NC State was performing three Agatha Christie plays over the summer I was very excited. My excitement was in no way lessened when I went to see the first play, A Murder is Announced. I loved most things about it, and I would probably give it Four Stars out of Five(the missing star is due to the fact that I didn't like the way the detective was played and thought that the villain was played in a very obviously creepy way).

Yesterday I went to see what I thought was Death on the Nile, one of Christie's classics with her greatest detective Hercule Poirot. I walk in to the theater with two friends who are also Christie fans and we sit down and wait for the play to being. The set is fantastic and we get pretty good seats so we're feeling pretty good. An announcement comes to turn off cell phones and the play begins.

It starts off well with most of the actors doing pretty well. And then, and then the victim enters. The basic plot of Death on the Nile for those who don't know is that this rich young woman(Linnet)'s best friend(Jackie) is getting married and she(Jackie that is not Linnet) asks Linnet to give her fiancee(Simon) a job. Linnet does so and Simon ends up breaking up with Jackie and marrying Linnet. Jackie as one might assume is less that happy about this and begins to stalk Linnet and Simon as they go on their honeymoon in Egypt. One night on a cruise ship Linnet is murdered in the very way that Jackie had wanted to kill her earlier. However Jackie cannot have done, so who did? It's up to the world famous detective Hercule Poirot to figure it out before anyone else is killed.

Yeah, so here's the problem the play was not Death On the Nile, no it was Murder on The Nile. In Murder on The Nile World famous detective Hercule Poirot is replaced by random clergyman Cannon Something-or-other. Yeah I can't even remember his last name even though I saw it last night. In the book it makes sense for Poirot to handle the case, as he's actually...you know... a detective. In this play the authorities on the ship seem to be totally incompetent as the clergyman is also a suspect, in fact in the book he(or rather the character he's based on) was one of the prime suspects for the murder.

Also, Jackie, poor poor Jackie. By far the most interesting character in the novel. However in the play well.....how about I use an example? The night of the murder Jackie is in the Saloon of the ship and is totally drunk. She is yelling at Simon and finally pulls out a gun and shoots him in the leg. This is a very dramatic scene that is Jackie's crescendo it's when she just can't take any more. It's a very dramatic scene in the novel. So how does the actress playing Jackie in the play decide to play it? By yelling a non-stop string of words at a very high pitch with no inflection.

It was both painful and hilarious. I don't know why that actress got the role but she was really really bad, I'm sorry I really hope her mom isn't reading this but I gotta call it like I see it.

Anyway, to some up this play was bad. And I mean bad. Add to the fact that the main actress couldn't act and that they got rid of the detective in a MURDER MYSTERY a terrible script and you will never have a good play.

I am going to see the final play in this series in a few days and I am really looking forward to it and I am really hoping that I just saw an off night for "Murder" on the Nile.

NC State Theater Fest 2010

A Murder Is Announced: 8/10

Murder on The Nile: 4/10

Spider's web: ?/10

Ann coulter gun toter

So in the latest issue of Time magazine they named who they think are the 100 most influential people in the world today. Everyone from Glenn Beck to Barack Obama to Lady Gaga were named, and the editors decided to ask all the women named who or what had the most influence on them when they were young. One person said the bible, no huge surprise their, the author of the Hunger Games said her father, again not really surprising, the Speaker of the house said, and I'm not even kidding, the little engine that could(I think I can, I think I can, I think I can so I'll have the whip take a nose count and see if I actually can)

Ann Coulter Said, and I quote, "Do you consider the Second Amendment a person? Otherwise, I'd have to say my mother and father. Also, my brothers: John, for making me read Milton Friedman and Bill Simon as a kid, and Jimmy, for tormenting me throughout my childhood — an invaluable experience if liberals ever send me to Guantanamo."

How can the 2nd Amendment be one of the things that had the most influence on your life? It says that we have the right to keep and bare arms, it's not really philosophical, but I'm not one to talk, I have based my life around Article 1 Section 7 of the Constitution, the part about the veto, revenue bills, and the legislative process. You might think that's a little weird but I've got a friend who's based his life around Article 11 of the Articles of Confederation, you know the bit about Canada being allowed to join the US whenever it wants, the fool!

Seriously though I can think of two possible reasons why she would say the second amendment. My first idea is that she misspoke and meant to say the First Amendment, which is something that could influence you, you know the right to say what you want and such. Or, and I think this is probably it, she was trying to be inflammatory, which would not be totally unheard of for Ms. Coulter.

Veto Racial Profiling? Why Would I Do That?

Today the Governor of Arizona signed into law a bill which aims to help police deal with illegal immigration. So far so good right? Everything's good, just another day in Arizona. So why am I writing about it? Because when you actually read the bill there are some very scary things in it, and I don't mean that the bill quotes Stephen King, the scariness of this bill is a much more George Orwell type of scariness.

The bill states that "FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE,
WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c)."

Yeah. And that's not even the best bit. That comes later in the bill when it says "A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES."

What I love is that the Governor of Arizona signed the bill and then issued an executive order saying that police officers should have training on how to enforce this law without using racial profiling. Did she miss the memo or something? "REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES"? How can that not be racial profiling? How do they expect to have "reasonable suspicion"? If the person has an accent?

This law is slippery slope, and I certainly don't like where the slope leads.

And that's the way it is.
(I really need my own catchphrase to say at the end of rants like this, any suggestions?)

lyrics of the week

Clampdown
(J. Strummer/M. Jones)

What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
'Cause they're working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we're working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers

The judge said five to ten-but I say double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D'you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

You grow up and you calm down
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now

In these days of evil presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown
But ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!



one of my all time favorite songs.

Book review: This World We Live In

Okay, so, I love me a good post-apocalyptic book, and the Dead and The Gone By Susan Beth Pfeffer was a good one. The basic premise of the book and it's companion book Life As We Knew It is that an asteroid smashes into the moon knocking it closer to the earth and thus screwing everything up. Life As We Knew It was about a family that lives in a small Pennsylvania town. The Dead and the Gone(which was way way better) was about three kids living(and dying) in New York City after their parents go missing.

In the third book in the trilogy, the newly released This World We Live In, things are getting a little better for the family in Pennsylvania when the two surviving kids from the Dead and the Gone show up. Shockingly the older girl from the first book and the boy from the second book fall in love within twenty pages. Who could have possibly expected that? Two protagonists falling in love with each other? Totally unheard of!!

Before the Dead and the Gone people arrive the book is a generic disaster survival book and then the Dead and Gone guys arrive and it becomes Twilight.

There are many problems with this book but I have three main ones. The first and most important is the way the book treats Alex, the main character of the Dead and The Gone. In the Dead and the Gone he is a heroic character who looks out for his two younger sisters in a terrible situation. In this book he is a suborn, fanatically christian, overly romantic, moron. He consistently tries to leave the small town in Pennsylvania where he and his sister are happy and relatively safe to got to a monastery for really no reason whatsoever.

My second problem is the way the various romances that occur in the book are portrayed. They all happen basically overnight, one literally does happen overnight. Early in the book the brothers of the girl from Pennsylvania go to the river to fish and one of the brothers meets a woman who is being beaten up by a guy(what that was all about is never explained) and the brother tells the guy to stop hitting her and then he(the brother) marries her the next day. Okay, yeah. So that gives you a little taste of what was wrong with this book.

My third problem is the ending. I don't want to ruin it for you, but I will if you don't stop reading now.


Still Reading? I will ruin it?



Will you stop reading already?! God almighty!!



Okay here is what happens in the end, the protagonists decided to go away to a "safe town" where there are still hospitals and schools and such with some of the family members, leaving the rest behind for no real reason. Then a tornado hits the town. Killing one of the group and paralyzing the sister. The female protagonist kills her to put her out of her misery. And then she writes(did I mention that the book is told through her diaries? Well they are.) that the world is bad, her life is bad, in the end everyone is going to die, there is really no hope, so she's going to go hang out with Alex. And they all lived happily ever.

But it's all okay because she learned life lessons from those who have died.

I do not recommend this, but I do recommend the Dead and the Gone.

2/5

quote of the day

"I never considered myself a maverick."----John McCain

Yeah he never considered himself a maverick except in campaign ads(one was actually called "the Original mavericks"), speeches, town halls, debates, and the subtitle of one of his memoirs. For years John McCain's thing is that he's a maverick and that he wasn't elected "Miss Congeniality", now apparently he never said that. John, what's going on in that mind of yours?

A few news flashes

John Boehner said last night in a speech on the House Floor "Can you go home and tell your senior citizens that these cuts in Medicare will not limit their access to doctors and further weaken the program instead of strengthening it?"

He said like many others have that we have to resist Government Medicine and strengthen medicare. Now I say this with as much respect possible to those who say this, but ARE YOU ALL IDIOTS?!!!!

Medicare is in fact, gasp, Government Medicine. It is run by the God Blessed Government! It is Socialized Medicine in every way! As is Medicaid and the health care that the army has(that incidentally has been called by conservatives the best health care in the world).

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am not a huge fan of hypocrisy. And arguing against government health care by saying how great Medicare is is, wait for it, Hypocrisy!

John Boehner also said that the Republicans weren't involved enough in the process. I will simply put what I yelled at my computer screen while I watched him say it "We put you on national freaking TV! What more do you want?! You refused to negotiate!"

Alice In Wonderland Review

So I just came back from watching Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Now I will say this up front: I love the cast. I mean how could you make a movie with Johnny Depp, Michael Sheen, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Christopher Lee, Timothy Spall, and Crispen Glover not be great?

Let me tell you how, get the worst script you can find and then tell the actors not to actually bring anything new to the characters. For the first time I can actually say that Tim Burton really did not direct this movie well. I think the whole "Oh look what we can do with CGI" phase is now over because of a guy called James Cameron made a movie that had the best CGI ever and everything will seem bad in comparison.

The acting in this movie was not bad exactly, but it was so safe. I mean Johnny Depp played basically the same character he played in Pirates of the Caribbean. He did well as Jack Sparrow because it was so out there and by the third movie the role was getting a little old and annoying. The Mad Hatter took about half a scene to get old and annoying. I have yet to see a version of Alice In Wonderland that I like, which is a little unsettling as I'm in a play version of the book. Also the way the dress sometimes shrunk and stretched with Alice while other times it did not. The Ending was also terrible.

The writing for the beginning of the movie was just terrible. All the characters just basically said what they were thinking and feeling. The scriptwriter didn't even try to make Alice's suitor sympathetic. In fact, the scriptwriter didn't try to make any of the "bad" characters sympathetic. The Red Queen got on my nerves really quickly and Knave was just kind of weird.

On the plus side Anne Hathaway was great as the White Queen and Mia Wasikowska was very good as Alice, she succeed where the previous actresses who have played Alice failed, she made her sympathetic and not annoying.

In short it was a boring, deeply strange, and safe movie. It was highly formulaic when you strip away the odd characters you have hero hates real world, finds weird one, discovers that he/she is the hero of a prophecy and meets a wise old man, he/she doesn't think that they can fulfill it, friend of hero is capture by villain, hero rescues friend, hero escapes to good guy's hideout, hero stills doesn't think that they can do it, mentor tells hero that they can and then dies, hero fights bad guys, hero wins, hero decides to leave the wonderful world where they have been staying and goes back to the far inferior real world solely because it is the "real world"(why can't the nice world be real and the bad world be fake, who decides that one is real and the other isn't?), Hero turns life around and becomes happy, peppy song plays over credits. Tim Burton, you done us wrong this time and what's with Alice not telling her sister that her sister's husband is having at least one affair? What message does that send to your daughter? And while I'm talking about your daughter and messages that are sent to her from this movie, why does Alice have to have a romantic relationship with the Mad Hatter, why do movie heroines always have to have romantic relationships? It's so messed up.

Do not end don't ask don't tell

Yeah! I said it, like many conservative pro-military Americans I want to kick all the gays out of our military! I don't care if they're Arab Linguists, which we sorely need, or the best dang soldiers that ever lived! I'm not letting no gay people into my military!

Why, you ask. Here's why because the Bible says that being gay is wrong, and I believe in the Bible! I believe everything in it, every single God-Blessed word of it! Except for the stuff about polygamy, slavery and loving your neighbor.

In fact, I think that no one who does not obey the Ten Commandments should serve in our military.

1. "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." That's right! We don't want no stinkin' atheists in our army! Or any Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or any other people either! Just good Christians in our army!


2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My Commandments. No one who has ever pledged allegiance to anything other than God should be allowed in!


3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain. Yeah! No cussin' in the army!


4. Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it. No working on the Sabbath day! If you do then we kick ya out!

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. If you ever fought with you ma or pa, then there's the door!

6. Thou shalt not kill. Dang Right, We don't want any killers in our army!


7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Ever slept with anyone you ain't married to? Then get the heck outa our military!


8. Thou shalt not steal. No stealin' in our fightin' force!


9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Ever lied to get someone in trouble or to start war? Then no more fightin' for you!


10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's. You ever been jealous? Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

So, to conclude we need to make sure our army remains the best and most talented in the world, so we need to kick talented and well trained people out because of who they sleep with. Doesn't that make a whole lot of sense?

so be careful of those killing in Jesus name, he don't believe in killing at all

So there is this bill in Uganda that will put gay people in prison for life and those who don't report them in prison for three years. Also if the gay person is HIV positive they will be put to death. What's most disturbing about this issue is that Rev. Rick Warren announced his support of this bill and the secret Christian Organization the Family is helping to get it passed.

I have something to ask all these so called Christians, what did Jesus teach? What was the golden rule? What did he say to do when someone hits you on one cheek? WHAT DID HE SAY ABOUT LOVE?!!!!! How do you think God reacted to the Holocaust!st? And now you think that God wants you to put all Gay people in prison?

Jesus was a man of love and this is a law of hate, pure and simple. I call on all Christians to speak out against this bill which is the total and complete opposite of everything that Jesus taught. To Quote Bono "God will not accept that. Mine won't. Will yours?"


This is a bill of Genocide, plain and simple, and no one can honestly say that the Christian God is in favor of Genocide. This bill is sacrilegious and an affront to humanity. If this bill is passed Christianity will be remembered as the religion that supported Genocide and I don't think any christian wants to be remembered that way. Ask you minister to make a statement against it, God and History will thank you for it.

And That's the Way it Is.