Issue 133

News: Actually, you can pray in schools.
I recently saw a video on Youtube where William Murray, son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, debated with a member of American Atheists, about school prayer. Of course, after the opposing side stated that school might not be the right time and place for prayer, Murray decided to use this remark and use his use of "situational ethics" to compare his opponent to Hitler. I also found a website which shows a lot of statistics which purport to show how much America is going to Hell in a handbasket for abandoning school prayer (even though coorelation is not necessarily causation, as I'm sure that statistics of more stridently secular countries would show). Fundamentalist bull-headedness aside, I must note that, believe it or not, PRAYER IS LEGAL IN SCHOOLS! It's just not legal for the faculty to lead the prayers (because they are here to teach children what is and not just what many people in America believe to be true), and is highly frowned upon for the students who pray to be too disruptive to what everybody's actually here for (i.e. babbling like an imbecile and handling snakes, or on the less stereotypical level, praying by singing hymns loudly for long periods of time like Nusrat.) Anyway, I fail to find any legitimate grievance in the Fundamentalists' argument. As Dennis Miller said in one of his rants, if a parent feels that prayer is an important character-builder, then they should pray with their kids themselves and stop fobbing off their responsibilities as a parent on the public school system. And even looking at it from a religious perspective, you need look no further than the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus advises against praying in public at all (Mt. 6:5-6). So, from any perspective, the arguments for school prayer have no real validity whatsoever.

Band Name of the Day: None.

Film Idea of the Day: A man attacks a woman while singing a Rossini aria and her husband and young son are forced to watch, and afterwards, the son grows into an opera singer and takes a master class with another singer. When she coerces him into singing that same aria, he proceeds to act out the same actions that happened to his mother on his teacher. Violence begets Violence. I'm currently writing this as a monodrama.

Review of the Day: Scarface. I had seen the 1932 version before, but yesterday was the first time I saw the 1983 version. I must say that it is now coming close to becoming one of my favorite movies, and there is no doubt that at least some of it is due to the similarities between this and my favorite movie, A Clockwork Orange, and one need only listen to the similarities between the synthesized Purcell music that opens ACO and "Tony's Theme" from this movie to prove my point. Perhaps after a few more viewings, it may make my top spot go from a tie between ACO and Taxi Driver, to a three-way between them.

Quote of the Day: "All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one."
__________Tony Montana

Link of the Day: The semi-official site of a TV show I've been a big fan of for more or less my entire life.

Note: Please don't be surprised if I go for a long period of time without updating my blog. Well, at least I seem to be updating more frequently than Strong Bad seems to have been.

Issue 132

News: Regarding OJ: The People Can Now Have it both ways!
As I'm sure we all remember, Footballer OJ Simpson was arrested 14 years ago on suspicion of murdering his wife and a house guest. Of course, after a year's worth of creating media circuses, and further dividing the races in America, with some claiming he was framed by a racist conspiracy (something I'm sure has happened in the recent past to many, but not to O.J.), and some just deciding he was guilty. But an eighth of a century later, he stole some memorabilia from a Vegas sports museum, but recently, he was finally found guilty. He may not have admitted to having done most of the things he was charged for, but the stealing of memorabilia that he has admitted to would probably give him enough prison time to get him in jail for a long enough time that it is reasonable that he will spend the rest of his life in jail, and the other crimes he's been found guilty for make this scenario more or less certain. And now, it looks like people who think he didn't kill those people can think he didn't, and those who think he did can finally see him end up in jail for the rest of his natural life.

Band Name of the Day: Crazy pSychos of America. Why not?

Film Idea of the Day: A set of novellas, all unified by the fact that a main character is a princess in situations that couldn't be farther than
*A novella which is best described as Roman Holiday meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with a princess visiting Chicago runs off with a journalist, and they both fall in love, tour Chicago, and do massive amounts of drugs.
*A film director is doing a film based on the story of a girl who discovers she is really the next in line to a monarchy, and slowly goes mad while making it, turning it into something more bizarre than anybody could have imagined.

Film Review of the Day: Preacher. I recently discovered this comic book series, and it is actually quite interesting. A preacher is possessed by the progeny of an angel and a demon, and then is driven, along with his reconciled ex-girlfriend and an Irish vampire, to literally find God, and try to demand an explanation for what has happened. This series has many similar themes to the His Dark Materials trilogy, and probably would have ended up with a more popular adaptation than Golden Compass seems to have been so far.

Quote of the Day: "Every Virtue has its contemptible literature"
_______________Celine.

Link of the Day: A website about Skepticism.