Casey: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/2008_greek_riots.html
Kevin: damn, that’s nuts
Kevin: compelling pictures
Casey: too bad they didn’t put the phone number for hot protester chick in #7
Kevin: lol dude i was thinking the same thing. is that wrong?
Casey: never
Kevin: she’s fighting for social justice and government reform and shit
Kevin: and we’re just thinking about banging her
Casey: bow chicka bow wow
The surest way to attract derision on the internet is to express a strong opinion about politics. I’ve kept this blog fairly apolitical for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I just don’t feel like pissing off my friends and picking fights with strangers. To fully understand what I mean, I invite you to visit YouTube and do a word search on either “Obama”, “McCain”, “Biden” or “Palin” and browse all of the toxic, hateful user comments on the video of your choice. With that caveat out of the way, I couldn’t let this day go by without saying something about the election.
When the race finally narrowed down to Barack Obama and John McCain, I was genuinely excited at the prospect of having a choice between two candidates whom I actually liked in nearly equal measure. There was plenty to like about both of these men, and I would have been proud to call either of them my president. To be frank, though, I was rooting for Obama all along — especially after the train wreck of a campaign that McCain was running in the final four months of the election season. The inclusion of Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket, for example, was a deal breaker all on its own for me.
But that’s all beside the fact now, because Barack Obama is our new president. The national atmosphere is buzzing with expectation and renewed hope. For the first time in years, I am inspired by my country’s elected leadership. I’m excited by the prospect of a new American president who promises change — who promises to steer our country in a different direction after eight sloppy years of stewardship by George W. Bush. I only hope now that our man Obama can live up to the towering hype. There’s plenty of work to do, and plenty of chances to prove the skeptics right. Congratulations, President Obama. For everybody’s sake, I wish you well.
Good job, America. Who needs logic, truth, equity, international support, or even proper grammar when you’ve got pure, unadulterated dogma?
It’s funny the way mass-media has grown to perceive the blogging community. In light of Dan Rather’s Bush-bashing blunder, commentators on various news broadcasts have begun to paint a noble image of what bloggers represent. We are the new wave of grass roots political activism. We are all highly literate, immaculately well-informed scholars who can sway the masses with our incisive commentary. We are vigilant patriots, forever standing at the ready with pens poised, waiting for the next political controversy to arise so that we can issue to the world our immediate opinions.
When the Bush memo scandal was at its peak two weeks ago, right-wing talk show host Sean Hannity praised bloggers for debunking the memo’s authenticity long before Dan Rather and CBS admitted their mistake. On the left side of the spectrum, Jon Stewart, host of the The Daily Show, recently spoke some of his own words of admiration for bloggers on The Charlie Rose Show:
Here are people that are unbelievably knowledgeable in very specific fields, and unbelievably well-tentacled into all sorts of areas of information–and they’re doing it immediately.
There are others in the media that have had similar praises.
You know, I used to think bloggers were the only ones who took blogging too seriously. I agree, there does exist a faction of ridiculously smart people that maintains informative and potentially influential blogs. But even in this text-based virtual world of ours, the laws of economics still apply. What we have here is market saturation. With the growing popularity of weblogs, coupled with the increasing credibility that the mass media deems on the so-called “blogosphere,” the blogging community has seen a huge influx of new entrants. Let’s be honest. For every politically-charged weblog, there are twelve others that are simply devoted to pictures of the webmasters’ cats. There are more people talking about the mundane minutia of their daily experiences than there are people discussing France’s ban on religious apparel in its schools. More people are bitching about their failing love lives as opposed to George W. Bush’s fiscal policies. On the whole, we’re not quite the noble savages that the media plays us up to be.
It’s not my place to belittle the blogging community, nor is it my intention to do so. I don’t talk about politics very much at all, but I do often blog about mundane things. I do bitch a lot about my love life (but not recently, thanks to Diana). And I don’t have a cat, but I do take pictures of my stuffed bear and post them online. I’m not trying to discredit the world of blogging, but I also don’t think we should be deifying it with hype. The blog can impart wisdom, yes. But given the staggering amount of blogs out there, who has time to read them all? The market is saturated, and just as it is with cable television and its prolific channel selection, nobody has time to read and care about every blog. In short, do bloggers really have as much power as figures in the mass media would claim?
The internet is a huge bathroom wall, and everybody has a chance to scrawl on it. In leaving their mark, some would choose profundity with a quotation from Gandhi, while others are perfectly content to scribble things like, “I heart boobs.” When you indiscriminately open up a writing medium to a mass selection of people, you have to expect anything. I don’t deny the power of single voices. But how often do you take heed to the things that people write on bathroom walls?
The other day, my classmate Jennifer saw somebody walk by wearing a Blogspot t-shirt, and she asked me, “What the hell is a blog?” Damn straight, Jennifer.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore got the boot today for his refusal to remove a monument honoring the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the state courthouse. When I first mentioned Moore in my blog, I was visibly irritated and admittedly antagonistic. But now that Moore is out of work, I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
While the phrase “separation of Church and State” never actually appears in the US Constitution, I still believe that the tenet is very much a part of the spirit of the law and should therefore be upheld. But even so—although I’ve denounced Roy Moore’s decision to erect a TWO TON granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse, I never wanted the guy to be put out of a job. Okay, so I did at first. But now that it’s happened, that soft, wishy-washy, closeted John Denver loving part of me wishes that things had played out differently. Even though I disagree with Moore’s actions, I do at the very least give him props for taking a stand on something that he believes in.
Stupid compassion. It paints everything with Prosaic Shades of Gray. To those of you who remember the Movie titles entry, that last one was for you.
What’s all this crap we’re hearing about Alabama? In a largely symbolic gesture, some courthouse in Alabama was ordered by US federal courts to remove a tall, granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the lobby. Predictably, this pissed off plenty of Christians, who have resolved to set things right and to get that TWO TON slab of granite back on public display by holding daily rallies, chanting slogans, and basking in the media frenzy they’ve been causing. Okay, so I may regard this story with a certain amount of less-than-subtle disdain, but I honestly do sympathize for the supporters of the monument. I would imagine that if US federal courts had ordered the removal of a public symbol that belonged to any other faith–be it Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or otherwise–members of that faith would be just as offended. If I still aligned myself with the Christians, I might have found the ruling to be hurtful, blasphemous, and needlessly antagonistic…but only at first. Let’s move beyond the initial emotional reaction of seeing the huge polished stone being carted away, and consider a matter of equity.
The man that installed the monument was Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who in 2001 decided to battle the public perception that America’s south just wasn’t “Christiany” enough. And really, what better way is there to tell the world that you’re a pious guy serving in the piousest courthouse in the piousest state in the piousest country than a TWO TON slab of rock with Yaweh’s written law scrawled across it? We’re talking about something that’s literally etched in stone here. The reason, though, that Roy Moore was allowed to install that Ten Commandments monument in the first place is that Christianity is just one of those things that nobody “ought to object to.” It’s an old American standard, a hometown hero, the team with home field advantage. The majority of America’s population is comprised of Christians, which is why Roy Moore was able to install the monument with relative ease. (“Relative” is the keyword here, since I’m guessing he probably went through some crap to get the thing displayed in the beginning.)
What if, for the sake of argument, Roy Moore was actually Roy Patil a Hindu, and he one day decided to install a six-foot statue of Vishnu? Do you think all those stouthearted, justice-seeking Christians would have embraced the preserver god’s presence? Or let’s say Roy Moore was actually Roy Chang, a Chinese Buddhist who insisted on installing a tribute to the laughing Buddha? Would the community rage with resounding approval? Chances are, probably not, since statues of four-armed deities and shirtless fat dudes just make us wholesome, American Christians uncomfortable. If those other statues actually reared their backwards, blasphemous heads into an Alabama courthouse, there would be minimal opposition to their immediate removal.
As many have said before (and much more eloquently), displaying religious symbols of any kind in a public institution such as a school or a courthouse is unjust. It is an imposition of one party’s beliefs onto all the members of a diverse community. Neither Roy Moore, Roy Patil, nor Roy Chang have the right to abuse their positions of authority by imposing their religious views onto the public. And to all of you Christians getting bent out of shape over the TWO TON monument of the Ten Commandments, just remember the first commandment: “I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” That includes idols, you know. Don’t worry so much about physical representations of God and just stick to keeping Him in your hearts. Now, for Christ’s sake, is that so hard?
The war with Iraq was resolved peacefully. Such an unexpected and unprecedented event has inspired all the world’s nations, and now world peace has been officially declared.
Just kidding. April Fools!
‘Despair or folly?’ said Gandalf. ‘It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy!’-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Rings
In all the grandiose tales of bravery and honor, the difference between right and wrong is almost always a simple matter. But that kind of clarity only exists in fairy tales. Now yet again, as the US stands poised on the brink of war, we are all compelled to question whether an assault on Iraq is warranted, and if it’s even worth it. Over the past few months, my opinion has swayed several times. But now, after hearing what people have had to say on the matter, and after much reflection, I believe the US is doing the right thing. Maybe I’m a product of propaganda. Maybe I don’t fully appreciate the horrors of combat, even after viewing all of those well-produced war movies. All I know for sure is that Saddam is one of the biggest assholes alive today. It saddens me to think that so much blood has been—and soon will be—shed on his behalf. Between despair and folly, I’m eager to choose neither. But choices have been made, and now we all await the outcome of this war. May God help us all, if it suits Him to do so.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pushing hard to make changes that really matter. Their latest successful effort: renaming food items on House cafeteria menus. French fries are now “freedom fries,” and French toast henceforth shall be known as “freedom toast.” The repercussions of this public snubbing will be felt for years to come. Good job, guys. You sure showed the French.
By the way, French fries originated in Belgium, you fucking geniuses.
All over campus I see people walking around with handwritten signs attached to their backpacks that read, “NO WAR.” Now I’m not a big fan of Bush’s calls for war myself, but I find it hard to take these silly little signs seriously. To be fair, I do respect the people that bear these signs, because I realize that you open yourself up to a world of judgment and grief when you wear your politics on your sleeve (or your back, as the case may be). But honestly, what do these people really think they’re accomplishing? Maybe they’re hoping that one day, President Bush will take a look at satellite photos of the college campus, see the “NO WAR” signs plastered across their backs, and then he’ll say to himself, “Holy shit, they’re right.” Then he’ll call up Saddam to patch things up because, as we all know, dictators respond to love. Am I being too fatalistic? Because I seriously doubt there’s a damn thing the public can do to stop this war.
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