Issue 63

News: D.A.R.E. to keep ineffective programs in schools.
I just recently decided to talk about something I haven't taked about for a while now, and that is drugs (and specifically the War on Drugs, or as I call it, Prohibition II: Electric Boogaloo). My stance can be best summed up as: "While there is no doubting that Drugs are harmful, the Government has no right to keep one from doing whatever he/she wants with his own body (especially if the person is of age)." One major facet of this that I will rant against is the Program DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance and Education). One of the major flaws of the program is that, when one compares the students who had DARE and those who hadn't, the students who had the program were ironically much more likely to take drugs (which the program defines as anything from Tobacco to Heroin) than those who hadn't. I had actually taken the program in the fifth grade and for the time being, it seemed to work, but years later, it would have seemed to have backfired as while I don't partake in drugs, I am vehemently opposed to the War on Drugs. There is also one major problem with the problem which proves my point. In the program, there is encouragement to report parents who posess some drugs, or even firearms, without telling them what was to happen to their parents (many of the people who have reported their parents believed they'd get the same treatment they themselves were given in the program) before they were arrested and thrown into prison (It is interesting to note that while Charlie Manson is eligible for parole, even if the likelihood that he will get it is zero, the parents who were arrested were not eligible for parole.) In many of the cases of children turning in their parents, the Children often wind up in therapy for feeling the guilt of having torn their family apart (I argue that the guilt really should fall upon the program). Anyway, the moral of this story is that Drugs are harmful, but a family destroyed by a government program is even worse.

Band name of the Day: The Testicular Sound Express. A name that Peter Griffin suggests giving to the band he formed with his family in the Family Guy episode "Don't Make Me Over".

Film Idea of the Day: For once I have come up with a blank on film ideas.

Film Review of the Day: The Breakfast Club. The film is about five students who don't know each other in a Saturday detention. They seem to appear to each other as one-dimensional stereotypes in the beginning, but the Characters reveal themselves further as the days go on. The film is particularly interesting, not only for its use of character development, in that, unlike most teen movies, it actually gives off the feel of a play adapted for screen (although it was, in fact, directly written for screen, although John Hughes has been asked to rewrite the film as a play, but hasn't.)

Quote of the Day: "I mean if modern day humans have been around for tens of thousands of years, then where are all the skyscrapers from years gone by? Where are all the books and artifacts? Where are the planes and cars?"
__________Supersport, Carm.org Discussion Forums From the site below.

Link of the Day: Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

Issue 62

News: Six million is an understatement.
In case you haven't been reading the news, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is heading a conference seeking to "review (read: deny) the Holocaust". Ahmadinejad himself called the Holocaust "A myth" around this time last year, as well as sponsoring a worldwide Holocaust editorial cartoon contest earlier this year, and as one can imagine from this statement, many of the people who were invited there were Holocaust Deniers, with one Israeli who was to speak out against Holocaust Denial denied an Iranian visa because of his Israeli citizenship, and six other token Jews (at least as I see it) from a group who, despite repudiating Ahmadinejad views on the Holocaust, shares his strong Anti-Zionist stance on Israel (which seems like sending Condoleeza Rice to a Klan rally to defend her race). Otherwise, besides those people, there were many infamous Holocaust deniers, like David Duke, Frederick Toben, and Richard Krege. One notable denier who wasn't invited due to his current trial in Germany was Ernst Zundel, the publisher of the infamous Pamphlet Did 6 Million Really Die?, the title of which was answered by me in the title of this essay you're reading right now. My stance is that there is way too much evidence for the existence of the Holocaust to deny it, with there being photographs, film evidence, documentation, and many living eyewitnesses to it, many of whom have preserved their stories on film, with thousands of them living in my hometown of Skokie. If the Holocaust were, in fact, false, one would think that at least one of them would have repudiated their stories (whch not a single one, to my knowledge, has.) In the end, the people at the conference decided to set up a foundation for Holocaust review to be headed in Tehran until they can get Headquarters in Berlin (which they will never get.)

Band Name of the Day: The Stoneless Cherries, from a song that Stephen Bishop (the Charming Guy in four John Landis films) sings in Animal House.

Film Idea of the Day: Power and Glory. The students of a college plan a War is Over rally in 1968 to Protest the war in Vietnam in a musical set to the songs of Phil Ochs.

Film Review of the Day: Georgy Girl. A surprisingly obscure British film with an only slightly less obscure Oscar-nominated theme song by the Seekers. This movie stars Lynn Redgrave as a homely woman named Georgina (aka Georgy or George) who strives to be like her roommate Meredith, a swinging woman of 1960's London who is also a Concert violinist. In the film Meredith and her boyfriend Jos have a child and she loses her affection for both in a short time, only to have both picked up by Georgy.

Quote of the Day: "Forgetting something is only to let them return in another form"
_____________Sigourney Weaver, The Village.

Link of the Day: The Bible Retold With Lego.

Issue 61

News: AFA up in arms about Ellison's oath.
Recently, Keith Elison became the first ever Muslim to become elected to Congress. When he swore an oath on the Koran, the American Family Association was up in arms and wrote a coulumn condemning the action, which has to be their most noteworthy editorial since they blasted the movie Shark Tale for being too gay-friendly. The writer, Dennis Prager, was angered at this supposed embrace of multiculturalism, which he noted as a "my culture is better than your culture" thing, which is ironically the tone he took for the entirety of the article. Prager's main complaint was that using the Koran to perform an oath instead of the Bible was un-american, claiming that it was "the only book America's interested in", and claiming that every other elected official has sworn his oath on the Bible (which is untrue, since John Quincy Adams swore his Presidential oath on a book of law), and that they are only letting him swear on the Koran out of fears of reprisals by muslims. One major problem with his outrage is that it is implied that Prager believes that it is required for any American Elected official to swear on the Bible (which it is not, and requiring it would be unconstitutional (see Article VI of the Constitution) ). Fortunately, he managed to not claim that America was founded on Christian ideas or that the founders of America were all christians (which many of them clearly weren't). Anyway, if and when I finally get elected to public office (which may or may not be soon, since Illinois state law allows state representatives and Senators to be 21 or older), I may seriously consider placing a copy of "The Catcher In the Rye" as a compromise between placing oath on the Bible and a book I feel just as reverently about.

Band Name: The Plastic Jesii. From the title of a song which I got into after watching the movie Cool hand Luke.

Film Idea: A student recounts her days as a pianist with a terminal illness at a school and how she spends her days with the roommates at her college. This is an expansion of a fictional chick flick seen by Peter and Lois in a recent episode of Family Guy.

Review: Falling Down. Michael Douglas appears in this 1993 film as Bill Foster, a man in LA trying to get to his ex's home in Venice, CA. He walks out of his car in the middle of a traffic jam and goes on a rampage against the nuisances of everyday life, including a Korean storemaster whom Foster believes is charging exorbitant prices, a Latino Gang which accosts him after he unwittingly tresspasses on their land, a fast food restaurant a few minutes after they stop serving breakfast, and actually killing a neo-nazi store owner. Meanwhile, a retiring police Detective named Pendergast (played by Robert Duvall) has to deal with his crime spree on the last day of his retirement. When they finally meet in the end, the film climaxes to an amazing finale. The film was made during the LA riots, and making a film like this at that time can be seen as nothing short of coureagous. Thumbs up!

Quote of the Day: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
___________The third paragraph of Article 6 of the Constitution, which should reduce AFA's complaint to a moot point.

Link of the Day: The aforementioned AFA report on Shark Tale being pro-homosexual

Issue 60

News: Making crappy music better.
Recently, I read about singer/guitarist Richard Thompson doing a concert tour about english popular music from the 11th century ("Sumer is Icumen in", the song from The Wicker Man.) to the turn of the milennium (Britney Spears' "Oops I did it Again") and I managed to see some parts of the show on the internet including his rendition of "Oops, I did it Again", and the solo guitarist rendition improved it greatly in my opinion, and with it he joined the elite few (read: only Weird Al Yankovic) who made the crappy music of my preteen years sound better by changing the way the songs were performed. Afterwards, I came up with the idea of performing some of these songs in the solo vocal/guitar style (often putting allusions to better [in my opinion] songs in the arrangements) and putting them on an album. So far, I have not started work on it, or even made a track listing of the kinds of songs I would perform, but I feel I should include the aforementioned "Oops, I did it Again", in a very similar arrangement to Thompson's. The songs would most likely cover the era of 1998 to The second half of 2003. With this said, I must say I'm sure I can do better, with just my guitar and voice, than the original artists did their songs with full productions.

Band Name of the Day: Future Virgins of America. It's a classically oxymoronic phrase, related somewhat to Groucho Marx's quip "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin."

Film Idea of the Day: The Last Words of Dutch Schultz. This must be one of the best screenplays I've ever read, and especially for one which hasn't even been produced yet, even if Dennis "Baby wants to **** Blue Velvet" Hopper owned the film rights for a brief moment of time. I may in fact be the one who does film it eventually.

Review of the Day: Letter to a Christian Nation. Author Sam Harris writes this surprisingly curt book in response to Fundementalist reactions to The End of Faith, his previous book, and he vents out his criticism of the Religious Right in the form of an open letter to them.

Quote of the Day: Cosmo: Talking pictures, that means I'm out of a job. At last I can start suffering and write that symphony
R.F.: You're not out of job, we're putting you in as head of our new music department.
Cosmo: Oh, thanks, R.F.! At last I can stop suffering and write that symphony.

Link of the Day: A strange music video of a singer from a small and fictional country trying out for eurovision.