Issue 192

News: This is probably old news, but...
Once again, I'm sorry I haven't been updating. I've been working on a short story, college applications, getting my service hours squared for my Criminology class, reacquainting myself with Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, and King Lear, and spending Easter at my grandparents' house (for the last time, since they're apparently selling it), so, between all of that, there hasn't been much time to write for the blog. That said, I have had a few ideas for blog entries, and here's one of them.
On March 20th, Not The Terry Jones, Fundamentalist nutjob who has been condemned from all sides for threatening to burn the Koran in September (for the record, I have mixed feelings about the act itself, ultimately resolving in a Voltairean "I disagree with what you say, but I agree with your right to say it," aided by the fact that, if a Koran is to be disposed of, technically, burning it is the recommended method), finally managed to do so. But he decided to first put the book on trial for six hours. What I'm wondering is: if he feels justified to do so for the Koran, what's to prevent someone from doing the same for The Bible? I can almost imagine it; Getting a man to prosecute the Bible (ideally a Gideon Bible, since they're pretty much free in any hotel room), and a priest to defend it in a court of law (I'd especially like to see it if we could get at least one of the lawyers to say something like "now, I'm just a simple country lawyer," like Jimmy Stewart), against charges of Crimes Against Humanity (what I have in mind would ultimately be something like Judgment at Nuremberg), and seeing how far it goes, especially if we can see it streaming online or after the fact on sites like Youtube. If the Bible is found guilty, it would be burnt while some fitting tunes (all of which should involve fire-related imagery), definitely beginning with Arthur Brown's Fire.

Film Review of the Week: Mildred Pierce (2011 version). For a while, the 1945 film version of James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce has been one of my favourite films noir. However, until recently, I hadn't read the original novel, and now that Todd Haynes adapted it into an HBO miniseries, I think that it's a worthy successor, so let me go over some of the most important elements:
*Mildred: Honestly, after looking into Joan Crawford's real-life motherhood, it's ultimately hard to take her seriously as a woman who would take a bullet for her daughters like she does in this film. However, in the film, it comes close to almost disintegrating any lingering doubts, but there's still the occasional thought in the back of my mind that wants to make a snarky reference to wire hangers. Kate Winslet, to the best of my knowledge, appears to have no such parenting problems, and it is much easier for me to take her seriously as a doormat of a mother. And, what's more, in the novel and the miniseries, her character arc becomes more dramatic: She goes from doting on Veda to saying (albeit at Bert's promting) "to hell with her."
*Veda: To be honest, it's very hard for me to say whether Evan Rachel Wood or Ann Blyth is a better actress in this role. They both seem to nail down the "Bratty-bordering-on-sociopathic Teenaged Daughter" role, and both look like they could very well be the daughter of the women playing their mothers, even if, in the case of Wood and Winslet, their ages are too close together for it to be realistic. However, to break the tie, I will note the climactic scene in the new version: When Mildred discovers that Veda is dating Monte, she strangles her, but she manages to get away. After this, Evan Rachel Wood curb-stomps willing suspension of disbelief by running around the house and then sputtering, repeating this for several minutes. Unless I can find some sort of evidence of this sort of thing being feasible after being strangled, I will use this as an example of how Ann Blyth's acting is better.
*Ray/Kay: I definitely have a favourite here: Jo Anne Marlowe's Kay is a much more interesting character than the Ray that Quinn McColgan played in the miniseries. The main reason for this is that I cannot help but find it satisfying that, in the 1945 film, the younger daughter, of all people, is something of a voice of reason for the family, and we see that a change occurs in the family dynamics when she dies, sometimes calling Veda out on her greed and ego. However, in the miniseries, she's just a little kid who just tries too hard to be cute, and when she dies, it feels more like the author is himself trying to get the audience to think that Ray was "too good for this sinful earth."
*Pacing/The Second Half: After reading the book, you really come to see how much the plot came to feel rushed in the film version; in fact, major plot points are completely glossed over in the film, like the fact that Veda is taking music lessons: these are mentioned enough times that they can be counted on one hand. In the miniseries and original novel, much of the novel's second half, and the last two episodes of the miniseries revolve around Veda's getting a career as a singer (a coloratura soprano, to be precise). Of course, the plot in the film still makes sense as a whole, and thus, it works, even though the miniseries allows the plot to breathe more.
*Mise-en-Scene: Michael Curtiz made it into a film noir. Todd Haynes filmed it to look like a lot like Douglas Sirk's "Women's pictures." They both worked extremely well for what they are. The choice between the two styles boils down to one's own personal preference, and mine leans strongly towards noir.

Issue 185

News: Amazon puts out a book on pedophilia. Should it stay up?
There has been, particularly in recent years, panic has been rising about the possibility of pedophiles in our midst. Let me give you my take on the whole phenomenon: whoever wins, the human race loses. If those who panic win, eventually, it comes to pass that the mob mentality completely takes over, and sooner or later, it leads to a lynch mob mentality against anybody who shows even the slightest interest in any child but their own. Already, it has led to parents increasingly sheltering their children from other people. And if the pedophiles win? Do I even have to tell you why humanity is screwed if they win? The latest incident in the war on pedophilia is that people have discovered an eBook which was reportedly a how-to guide of how to seduce children. The news was leaked on Wednesday, a day so slow that Michel Houellebecq winning an award (and not even an international one) was front-page news on Wikipedia. However, rather than succumb to the mob mentality, I actually tried to look up some reliable information of what the book was about. For all we knew, it could have been a guide for teaching pedophiles to have relationships that didn't cross the line into sex. Of course, it took a few days before I could manage to find somebody who actually read the book (the Amazon review pages, when they were up, did not seem to have a single person who admitted to actually reading the book), and when I did, the hype was pretty much verified. It did include a guide for having sex with children. However, that said, I think that breaking the story to the media was a very bad idea; first of all, before they finally took it down, the ebook went from having a sales rank in the sextuple-digits to #114. For comparison, James Joyce's Ulysses is currently #322. In short, the media story gave this guy even more attention than he could have ever dreamed of, and far more than he deserved. Even if he ends up getting jail time, I wouldn't end up being surprised if he ended up with a book deal from a bigger publisher (as long as he writes about the ordeal of getting banned, and not more of the same.) The second reason is that, generally, if one work is banned, sooner or later, more people are going to lobby for banning things they don't like, and eventually, we'll live in the world of Fahrenheit 451 because everybody will have found some offense somewhere. In case you think I'm exaggerating, PeTA has been asking that books they don't like be removed. Granted, PeTA are, by this point, a joke, and it's less likely that those books will be removed. But the slope is already getting slippery. Whoever wins, the human race loses.

Film Review: Mary and Max. Simply put,this is probably one of the best films about Autism I've ever seen. I've seen films about autism that aren't exactly that good on their own terms despite being excellent portraits of Autism (films like Adam and Mozart and the Whale regrettably fall into this category), films which are good, but portray autism inaccurately (like Rain Man), and then there's works like Sonichu which suck hard, and fail to portray much of a portrait of Autistic spectrum disorders. That said, I did find it particularly interesting, particularly in the fact that it blends tragedy and comedy, veering between the two almost constantly.

Quote of the Day: "Do you have a pet kangaroo? When I was born, my father left my mother and me on a kibbutz. She shot herself with my uncle's gun when I was six. Do you like chocolate hotdogs? I invented the recipe for them and can send it to you."
_______________Max from Mary and Max.

Link of the Day: Brass Eye's take on Pedo-Hunting.

Tract Review: Love that Money! Yet another tract about how angels and demons are fighting over people's souls, with the twist that this takes place in the latest economic downturn.

Also Originally written 12 September 2005

News: Political Correctness, Part 2.
As you can tell from my previous issue, I do not think highly of "Political Correctness". One big issue is the semantics of the term, because of the use of "correct" meaning that there is an actual correct type of speech, which is, of course, highly subjective, but semantics aside, there is another idea. I believe that All Men are Created Equal. Note that I mean "men" as shorthand for "All Humans". I mean that all human beings are, on the inside, created Equally (The one mistake in that line, and I hope I can get off semantics), not "all non-WASP, non-males, non-white, non-straight, and non-disabled/handicapped/handicapable (yech) persons are created equally." Soon, It will be seen that wheelchair-bound black lesbians are the best type of people. I can see where it comes from, because on the airwaves 50 years ago, Amos and Andy made Britney Spears' Media Whorage seem like Thomas Pynchon-level reclusiveness. Now, the new black stereotype is Spike Lee. There is no reason for White People to claim they are the greatest race on Earth, because of the fact that Blacks are less likely to sunburn because of their skin color and for those who think America is God's gift to Whitey, The Native Americans were here first. On to feminism: Sure, the barefoot, pregnant, and beaten senseless ideal of women doesn't appeal to me, but I don't see why the male becoming submissive and beaten senselessly by somebody who idolizes the woman who shot Warhol should be any improvement. I once saw an episode of All in the Family in which Gloria joined Women's Lib, Michael was furious, and Gloria was accusing of acting like a male chauvinist, and Michael counteracts with accusations of Feminism. This begs the question: why is one kind of self righteous gender supremacy better than another? Apparently, because it is more mainstream. And Religion: reading an extremely contradictory, complicated, and long book literally will solve your problems. YEAH RIGHT. On the other hand, Why change the name of Christmas to a flurry of holidays in the last week of December? Homosexuality: I am straight, but there is no point in having me discriminating against those who aren't, except for the Religion embedded into America. And the Disabled/handicapped/handicapable: I have no problem with you whatsoever. I just wouldn't want to be one of you. That's it with my list of Special Interest Groups. Now, The last time a nation was this much on the same page was Nazi Germany, not counting Oceania in /1984/ by George Orwell. Also, the Language changes like the phases of the Moon. Verdict: The Amos and Andy, Barefoot and Pregnant, Theocracy is an unacceptable extreme. Equally unacceptable is a nation of black supremacist lemmings of all races who have memorized the Vagina Monologues. So remember, If the Klan Meets up near you, turn up your stereo and close the curtains, peeking occasionally to see if they have left or if the Nation of Islam suddenly collides with them, in which case, keep the cameras rolling and give me the tapes.

Band Name of the Day: The Whole Nother Set of BS. This comes from a line in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode The Broodwich. Two demons are chatting and at one point the words "That's a whole nother set of Bull (Beep) i'm sure" come out. This is, of course, very memorable, to me at least.

Film idea of the day: Director's Cut. A filmmaker has a film drastically altered from his original vision and attacks the producers. Will he be found guilty in a court of law?

Review of the Day: Mickey Blue Eyes. In it, Hugh Grant plays an Auctioneer who marries a mobster (Jimmy Caan of Godfather fame)'s daughter. It is particularly memorable for Caan's son's violent paintings sold for upwards of $100,000. Also for a scene in which Caan sings and I think "Maybe if he starts a singing career, he wouldn't need crime."

Quote of the Day: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
___________________Benjamin Franklin.

Link of the Day: http://www.idrewthis.org/2005/gravity.html
This is another satire on Creationism, Intelligent Falling.

Originally written 12 September 2005

News: Below is an article about political Correctness written by an anonymous blogger on utopianhell.com about political correctness with annotations by me in italics.

When you think ‘Politically Correct’, do you get images of people not using particularly inflammatory and hurtful words, or do you get images of your free speech rights being violated? The Latter.

The split, I’d say is about 80/20 (strictly non-scientific, mind you). Eighty percent of the people, including every conservative I’ve ever known or spoken with, will believe that political correctness is a form of limiting free speech 80% of people are right in this case, while twenty percent of the people, mostly (if not completely) progressive, will believe that it is a tool to keep the conversation cordial. These are the sheep.

What’s unfortunate about this is that the wingnuts are the ones who made those 80% (even the liberals) feel that there is something horribly wrong with being politically correct. The last time a country was this much on the same page, it was 1930s Germany. During the age of political correctness (the 90s), we were bludgeoned repeatedly with anecdotes and scare stories by the conservative movement to attempt to scare us into voting conservative, if only to maintain our free speech rights.


...At a time when a disabled black man in Texas was beaten by
racists then chained to a truck and dragged down a road to his death
and a gay college student in Wyoming was tied to a fence,
pistol-whipped, and left to die, we would do well to focus our
sights on big-time incivilities such as racism and homophobia.
Instead, we are diverted by willy-nilly references in stories about
road rage, or worse, by fear mongers wh//o intentionally//_//_ set
out to confuse matters.

One of the most effective scare campaigns of the late twentieth
century-political correctness on college campuses-was undertaken for
the express purpose of changing the terms of debate about civility.
The people who generated the scare did not phrase it in those terms,
mind you; they couched their alarmism in First Amendment language.
In the late 1980s conservative commentors began warning of what they
described a “the greatest threat to the First Amendment in our
history” (Rush Limbaugh), I never thought I''d Say it, but that
bloated right-wing stoner is right “the equivalent of the Nazi
brownshirt thought control movement” (Walter Williams), and “an
ideological circus as deadly as AIDS” (David Horowitz). Both are,
of course true.

[The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things
,
Barry Glassner, p. 9-10]

So, when you read {Rox Populi}, {des femmes} and {Hugo Schwyzer} talk about the use of language in today’s society, you can tell where it came from. The inappropriateness of certain words as not politically correct has been demystified to the point of lunacy; to the point of making it okay to repeatedly use the word ‘p*ssy’ (even liberals), and use ‘B*tch’ as a matter of course in every day conversation.

Perhaps it’s time to resurrect PC, Aw Hell No! and make it more appropriate to the world… particularly when young, gaming boys think that ‘Gay’ is the best insult that they can throw Of course, this is because they are idiots for the most part, ‘N*gg*r’ is an appropriate word used in the reference of rap songs, and ‘C*nt, P*ssy, Wh*re, Sl*t and B*tch’ are appropriately used to sling hate at both men and women. And Don't Forget Semprini!

PC was never about telling you how you could and could not speak. It was, and still is, about learning to be civil to one another: You Say civility, you mean Banality.


I’m fond of saying at this point that the old line "Sticks and stones may break my bones But words can never hurt me." Then why not refuse to keep all non-white, non-straight, non-male, non-WASPs treated like Faberge eggs? can be said far more authentically by straight white Christian males than by anyone else! *Folks who look like me, make love like me, and believe as I do have created a language that in both formal and slang speech has few weapons to single us out, except by calling us what we are not.

[Enter v. envelop, and playing with the language
]

If we’re ever to take back language from those who would pervert it in an effort to hurt us, Where did I read about this before, OH YEAH.. 1984 by George Orwell. we’re going to have to stop being squeamish of PC, PC is being Squeamish of Non-PC and start educating people about what it really is. Think about it, and the next time you hear someone say ‘Oh, PC is bullshit’, remind them that it’s only bullshit if you’re white, male, straight and Christian. White, Straight, and Male, Yes. Christian, not too sure about at the moment, but I don't get angry if somebody says "Merry Christmas" to Me.

To Be Continues, but not as an annotation of a previously written article.

Band Name of the Day: The Little Cubicle that Ethics built. This Comes from an episode of The Drew Carey Show where Mr. Wick makes Drew in the running of the assistant store manager on the condition that he sabotages the competition. When Drew refuses, Wick says "Oh yes, I forgot, this is the little cubicle that ethics built."

Film Idea of the Day: Duuds on Ice. In this film, a group of extremely strange people tries to put up a musical version of The Blair Witch Project on Broadway.

Review of the Day: The Falls: For the first time in this Blog's History, I will review a film I have not seen from Start to Finish. This is because this is a 3-hour film available only in Europe about 92 victims of an 18-million-victim Pandemic called the Violet Unknown Event (or VUE), all of who's last names start with the letters FALL. The symptoms include a bird obsession often to the point of attempted flight and arrested man-bird metamorphasis, dreams of water, and a propensity for speaking in new languages.

Quote of the Day : The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
________________________Benjamin Franklin or Albert Einstein.

Link of the day: http://www.stanford.edu/~scodary/tkam.htm
This is a 12-minute flash animation about a high school student's warped interpretation of To Kill a mockingbird called "How to kill a Mockingbird"