Saturday, October 24, 2009

God, Guns, and free market economics...?

The Tea people are at it again. They are planning the next round of being crazy, looking crazy, and making sure Fox News documents their craziness everywhere they decide to murmur in tongues.

How did organizers get people to defend the very corporations that raised their credit card payments, put them out of work, screwed their retirement, and rejected their health care claims?

Well, because, God said so, of course!



I wonder if I am going to get an angel audit soon. Then again, I never got a Sega Saturn which I prayed for when I was 9, so I have seen no positive use of our holy tax dollars.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Straight, not Neanderthal

Let's take a moment to celebrate the expansion of the hate crimes laws to include gays and lesbians.

Some people have been rather confused about my die-hard allegiance to the gay rights movement, since I am heterosexual. Some people even doubt that I am straight considering my outspokenness. Heck, close friends and family have doubted it since I wanted to do ballet as an 11 year old (its because I thought the ballerinas were hot, and in hindsight, had I decided to be a heterosexual in the ballet world I would be more popular than a rockstar.) I love the cable channel Logo; Logo and I have a very positive and constructive Twitter relationship (in fact, they "RT: @"ed me a few days ago, thanks @Logo! Now back to #MyBlogTopic)

But the sad, boring truth of it all is that I am really just part of the sexual status-quo, a "breeder" from "Mars." There is no subtext to my political activity, I am an XY only interested in an XX. It's not my fault, this is how I was born, a statistic on the meaty part of the bell curve.

Then why would I be so aggressive about LGBT rights? Some may ask. Well, two main reasons. First and foremost, although I am a self-described atheist, there is still the matter of right and wrong. And in a modern, educated society, we know that discrimination and ignorance are very much wrong. Putting this discrimination and ignorance into law because of discriminatory and ignorant people is not only wrong, it's troglodytic. It's not a hetero or homo thing, its a human thing. And its time we evolve.

The second reason is pretty clear, it is because I AM straight. The law is on my side, I live without fear of discrimination, and I have absolutely no internalized fears of actually being gay. I feel like it is not only an opportunity, but kind of a necessity, to speak out on behalf of those who can't because they would lose their family or their community. I am in the camp that feels a lot of homophobia is a reaction to one's gay insecurity. The "ew thats gross, time to lift some weights!" syndrome. Is it really shocking that the most hetero-centric institutions like Frats, football teams, and the military always seem to get in trouble for hazing that seems just a bit...homoerotic?

Really in the end, we want a set of laws and a moral code that represents the fact that it does not matter. There should be no need to fall into camps, to associate only with specific communities based purely on identity (or mutual bigotry.) To seek a universal empathetic place to be as non-categorical as we want.


--The fight is far from over, if you have time or a dollar to donate, protect Maine's marriage equality by going to Protectmaineequality.org --

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Old products we wished were back for nostalgic purposes

Crystal Pepsi



Its Pepsi, but CLEAR! Perhaps a deconstructionist statement on the illegitimacy of soda ingredients?


Pogo Balls

Someone came up with the idea to let kids straddle a ball and jump around staircases leading to approximately 12,000 skinned knees.




Ecto Cooler

Because nothing quenches a thirst like the paranormal corn-syruped plasm of crushed ghosts.



Inside Out B.U.M. Equipment Sweatshirts



I scoured the internet looking for an image of these things, but they are practically forgotten out of existence. The B.U.M. inside-out sweatshirt was made to LOOK like you were wearing their equipment INSIDE OUT! The fuzzy label put all Champion shirts to shame in 1989.

OK. Soda



With their melancholy AD campaigns and a taste that resembled week-old coffee filters mixed with doctor pepper, OK soda sought out to be the carbonated beverage for Gen X. And much like Gen X, it sat around feeling misunderstood, did nothing but mope and crave attention (it even wanted you to call it at 1-800 I FEEL OK for emotional reassurance.)

Garbage Pail Kids



The fucked up, reactionary response to the Cabbage Patch Kids phenomenon. And they are still far more tasteful than those skanky "Bratz".

ROB The Robot



Nintendo caught on quickly that those obsessed with video games will eventually find themselves lacking of friends. So, why not make a friend to play games with you when you have no friends left? ROB the robot was that non-judgmental gamer buddy who wouldn't dump you for that kid with a pogo ball. To bad he had a tenancy to explode.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Seriously, Someone should sue Fox News.

Thomas Friedman struck a chord with the RNC when he wrote this article about the dangerous rhetoric used against Obama, the proponents of which are obviously associated with 24 hour news cycles, but now seem to be seeping into the floor of the house itself. Friedman argues that the bipolar climate is similar to that which existed in Israel on the eve of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.

On the forefront from the media-side of the attack is no doubt Fox News. If you haven't seen Glenn Beck's ridiculous ranting, you are probably just waking up from a coma or just very very lucky. In this maniacal monologue, Beck essentially is telling his viewers to "drive a steak" through the bloodsucking government.




"What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin." Friedman writes.

And a valid point. After 8 years of George Bush, it is not only appropriate to distrust government, but mix that cultural sensitivity with a resurgence of old-school McCarthyism and latent racism and you have a recipe for the kind of anger that makes people protest health care reform wearing loaded guns.

Many will argue that these are the "fringe." Moderates, fiscal conservatives and intellectuals may disagree with the government on issues from time to time, but certainly do not wish death upon our leaders. But what we are seeing here is a fringe that is becoming more and more pinned to their firearms listening to every word Glenn Beck tells them.

Let me say first and foremost that I am a strong supporter of the first Amendment. It is important to protect everyone's right to free speech, no matter how utterly ignorant it can be. Our constitutional freedoms are not made up by the good guys, it was the assholes that secured our rights (re. Brandenburg V. Ohio.)

I do not think Fox News should be censored. Simply sued by its customers for providing false information. To Say "Fox News" is a misnomer is giving it too much credit, its false advertising in the most dangerous degree. And people who only watch Fox News are getting a slate of crap sold to them as news, creating a self-contained informational divide. If you are watching a news station that tells you everything you want to hear to validate your ignorance, why would you choose to pop that perfect little bubble?

Lets say Fox created a channel called Fox Health, the mission statement being to provide Healthy tips to Americans. 50% of the time they may say the right thing (get your cardio, weight training, walk instead of drive etc.) The other 50% of the time they fill the airspace with pundits who are "health experts" who claim you need to "Eat your McDonalds, because you need protein!" Or "Don't trust your Doctor, all cholesterol is 'good' cholesterol." Hell, lets even give it a corporatist throwback: "Smoking was never really that bad for you, it was just the whiny liberals who made up those lies, just like global warming!"

This channel would be breaking so many ethical rules, and also may eventually be blamed for the deaths of the 15% of Americans who only get their information from Fox Health. Sadly, this isn't far from what Fox News is doing. It is irresponsible, unethical, and essentially false advertising. Journalism with a bias is almost unavoidable, but this bias shows a deliberate attempt to manipulate the truth for its own political agenda. It cannot rightfully be called a news channel*.

for more on intentionally distorted truths, go to http://mediamatters.org/topic/onlyonfox/





*Other cable news networks also need to up their game responsibility wise, irresponsibility is symptomatic to news-for-a-profit structures. But when it comes to intentionally distorting facts for viewership, FOX far outweighs its competition.