Issue 147

News: Proposition 8 Passes.
Just a few days ago, California's courts passed a controversial measure to put into the constitution a message which banned same-sex marriage. Of course, there are a few states where this is legal, but I have to ask: Why shouldn't gay people have the right to marry each other? Would having 2 men or 2 women marrying each other be more of an insult to a "sacred institution" such as marriage than the existence of Las Vegas-style quickie marriages and divorces that made Britney Spears' first marriage particularly notable? Or that somebody like myself can actually be licensed to perform marriages in this state? How will gay marriage affect your life in such a negative way that you feel that you have a duty to oppose it? Is the issue of whether homosexuals really should have the same exact rights as heterosexuals really such a big issue that you need to legislate your prejudices for all? If gay rights is really the proverbial "hill to die on" for the Christian right, I hope that they have written their last words already. At the very least, I would be very reasonable to assume that their grandchildren would end up looking upon their grandparents' generation who fought against gay rights, and would dismiss them in very much the same way that today's generation dismisses those who fought against Civil Rights. All I can say is that, despite this setback, it is likely only a matter of time until same-sex marriage becomes legal nation-wide, in the same way that gay sex itself became legalised nationwide in 2003.

Band Name of the Day: The Legion of Excited Prostitutes. From Cryptonomicon.

Film IDea of the Day: Young Americans. I can imagine this as a series similar to Little Britain, except with a larger cast, and many even more strange characters who aren't just exported from the british version of the show, including a rock star whose drug use has rendered him incoherent when he's not singing, a noir novelist whose plots frequently get totally derailed, a Gulf war vet who seems to pop up everywhere, and two teenaged boys, one of whom is uptight, and the other is hell-bent on having sex with any female regardless of age, body temperature, or species.

Review of the Day: Draughtsman's Contract. All that needs to be said is that, it seems not so much like a movie that takes place in the 1600s, as a film that would have been made if people in 1600s Britain could make movies (much less in full color and sound.) The only real thing that detracts from the illusion is the score, with its anachronistic saxophone section, as good as it is, of course.

Quote of the Day: "His name was Finnish, but he was British as only a non British Anglophile could be."
______Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon. This book, so far, seems to be as filled with lots of funny lines like this, as it does with really cryptic information you'll be hard-pressed to understand unless you've gotten far enough in life to become a qualified computer programmer.

Link of the Day: The personal site of yet another freethinker, less funny and more scholarly than Jim Huger.

Issue 97

News: My Views on Marriage
In a previous issue, I mentioned that I am personally opposed to the institution of marriage. In this issue, I will elaborate on the issue. One major flaw I find in marriage is that it is outdated, in that the original purpose of it was that it was merely a transfer of ownership of a young girl from her father to the man who would become her husband, reducing the girl from daughter to wife, and in effect, slave to her husband. Naturally, this is as a rule no longer the case and is simply a superfluous ceremony, full of sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing,. One other issue I have with marriage is the monogamy which society seems to expect from marriage. All the research I've done indicates that the "one man, one woman forever" lifestyle expected by many advocates of marriage is very rare and unlikely to work for most couples (it can work for some couples, but not for all), and one may even go as far as to call it "unnatural" (which I would not complain about, as virtually every posible type of sexual behavior has been observed in nature except marriage).

Band Name of the Day: Scooter Vacations. From the examples for the "labels" for the post.

Film Idea of the Day: Just Can't Get Enough. It is a jukebox musical based on the songs of the New Radicals in the album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too. The basic plot will be that a member of a religious sect prosceletyzes to a goth anarchist girl and falls in love with her, leading to conflicts with said sect. Naturally, since the number of songs is necessarily small, this will be a one-act musical.

Film Review of the Day: Z. This movie about the assassination of Greek politician/olympian/College Professor/JFK Equivalent Gregoris Lambrakis has taken its place as a favorite foreign movie of mine, and it may even beat out The Seventh Seal as my all-time favorite foreign movie.

Quote of the Day: "You may be right. I don't think so, but you may be right."
____________Robert Downey Jr. in Natural Born Killers

Link of the Day: DemSoc Forums. I post here. To find my username, think about my "ministry" and my favorite novel.

Issue 93

News: Derekaxe contra Wagner.
Earlier in the week, there came the 157th Anniversary of the premiere of Lohengrin. Many people know about the opera for two pieces: Its overture and, to a larger extent, a piece popularly referred to as "The Bridal Chorus" or "The Wedding March". One fact I learned is that the church of which I am a de facto member (even if my family has since avoided it in recent years like the plague) has officially denounced it for a large variety of reasons, none of which include the reason I have for hating the piece (stumbling upon the article has caused me to add a note in my "Catch the Wind" treatment advising against using the piece in the mock-wedding ceremony). While I disapprove of the institution of marriage in general (a fact which has not deterred me from becoming ordained in the Universal Life Church [I joined primarily because the Beatles were also ministers and to shut up people who think I am not qualified to talk about religion like I do], which gives me the authority to marry people), the use of Wagner's Bridal Chorus is one of the biggest problems I, personally, have with marriage. For me this is not because of Wagner's virulent anti-semitism (which he, fortunately, kept separate from his work in music as far as we know) which borders on proto-Naziism, but because of the unfortunate context in which it was originally placed in the opera (contrary to the LCMS FAQ writer's claims). In the original context, it was in the processional to the bridal chambers (as opposed to the processional towards the altar), which would have merely raised my eyebrows; What really irks me is that, soon after the song is over, said marriage turns out to be a complete failure. Similarly, the song "I will always love you" (as popularized by Whitney Houston), "the song" of countless couples since 1990's The Bodyguard, is about a bitter breakup, which even Whitney Houston acknowledged. (Whatever happened to songs like "Lady in Red" or "Bette Davis Eyes"?) So, there you have it; Odds are, the music that accompanied you to the altar was merely written as a prelude for disaster.

Bandname of the Day: Dr. Acula, from a film and character title envisioned by Ed Wood Jr.

Film idea of the Day: None

Film Review of the Day: Ed Wood. I saw this film a few days ago, and Johnny Depp's performance shows me the kind of man I see myself becoming in 15 years: an artist who creates art by following his heart in the most bizarre way possible, maybe even with ex-stars popularly believed to be dead.

Quote of the Day: "I don't have a girlfriend. I just know a woman who would be really mad to hear me say that."
____Mitch Hedberg.

Link of the Day: Want to take care of a Born-Again Christian's pets after the Rapture? Go Here. If not, go here anyway and get a few laughs.

Tract Review: There Go The Dinosaurs. Jack's in(s)ane view of the extinction of dinosaurs. They were not destroyed by climate changes brought by a comet, but by a combination of hunting by humans and post-flood changes in the air which somehow didn't affect any other type of animals. This is what Chick (and his scientific "source", Kent Hovind), even after it has been effectively refuted numerous times, seriously believes.

issue 49

News: Marriage and why Russian Roulette is a better choice.
Fairly recently, a constitutional amendment went through congess which, if passed, would ultimately ban Gay marriage. Today, I ask the question: Why should Heterosexuals be allowed to marry, much less gays? I doubt if you will still remember what happened two years previous, when the amendment previously went through congress, there was a show that had recently aired called Married By America, where people would actually call in to get two random people married based on the complete whims of people who obviously did not know anybody on the show. Also, "singing" sensation Britney Spears, who had gone on record as saying she would save herself for marriage, even when performing raunchy routines on stage, married a childhood friend while in a drunken stupor, and promptly divorced him within 55 hours. Clearly, Gay marriage doesn't mess up the sacrament of marriage as much as heterosexual marriage. Naturally, the author of such an amendment is an expert on the subject: He has been married and divorced twice, and has been photographed licking whipped cream off of a stripper at his '94 inaugural party, and was a major player in Clinton's Impeachment scandal when the Republican party decided that sex that would have been otherwise perfectly legal, should cost a Democratic president his job, ultimately adding that war crimes by a Republican should grant a second term, but I digress. Either way, marriage failure rate is at 50%, which means that the odds of a divorce in newlyweds are equal to those of getting "Heads" in a coin toss. I should point out that the odds of losing Russian Roulette, the kind that killed Johnny Ace and Christopher Walken are only 16.7% (For the record, I am not encouraging Russian Roulette among readers.) Indeed, I am sure that the percentage of marriages that do not work is much higher, considering that many married couples only stay together "for the children" or because their religion forbids it (Like Catholics and Mormons), and that many other marriages end in the death of a partner either before they get a chance to hate each other, or from death through the hands of the surviving partner. In any case, I am sure that long happy marriages are incredibly rare.

Band Name of the Day: The Töot Swoets. Comes from a musical number from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with the addition of heavy metal umlauts and intentional misspelling.

Film Idea of the Day: The Woyczek fragments. A screenplay based on the existing fragments of Buchner's Woyczek, in vignette style.

Review of the Day: The Boondocks. I recently got into an Adult swim series based on Aaron Macgruder's comic strip. The series is about how an Robert Freeman gains custody of his two grandkids (one is a black revolutionary and the other is a gangsta wannabe). The series remains funny even after many viewings of episodes (I have seen each episode at least three times). Some of the show's funniest moments come in the episodes starring Charlie Murphy (Chapelle's Show) as Ed Wuncler III, who is the show's resident George W. Bush parody, who frequently goes on crime sprees with crimes with his best Friend Gin Rummy (played by Samuel L. Jackson) ranging from petty theft to murder to war crimes (He went to Iraq) which go unreported because his family basically owns the cops and the town.

Quote of the day: "Control over women... Is control over Bitches!"
_______________Ed Wunceler III, The Boondocks.

Link of the Day: A series of humorous dissections of Chick tracts (my favorite dissection is of One way.)