Thursday, April 24, 2008
Penn Jillette Disagrees With the Pope
As sick as I am of this topic, I just couldn't resist giving the last word to Penn. I'll now return to my usual schedule of updating once a month.
Just kidding!
...Maybe.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Cynicism Redux, Plus a Bonus Treat
If the Pope’s blatant, self serving game of Pass-the-Blame™ was the straw that broke the camel’s back, then this is the fiery four foot dildo that raped the camel to death and left it lying there in a pile of charred flesh and various bodily fluids. What I am referring to is a commercial by Amnesty International on why you shouldn’t tie a person down and force water down their nose and throat.
In a desperate and tasteless attempt at being clever, the ad begins on a beauty shot of water being poured. The camera then pans downward, and we get a several seconds of high speed footage of a man being waterboarded. Yes, actually waterboarded, as in not a special effect or other type of trickery. That’s right, Amnesty-Goddamn-Motherfucking-International tortured someone to make a commercial denouncing the use of torture.
Okay, so Amnesty International decided that their message of anti-torture was so important that they tortured some guy to get it out there, but the question going through my mind is, why? Who are they trying to convince? Are they sending this tape directly to the White House? No, they are releasing it to theaters to run before the trailers. Meaning its intended audience is us, the general public. To say this caused me to sigh would be an understatement. To say it caused me to throw a pipe through the front windshield of my car would be an overstatement, but closer. Let’s just say it caused me to sigh so hard I might have changed the tides.
I’m guessing whoever came up with this idea doesn’t live in America. In fact, I find it hard to believe they live anywhere near the human race. I resent the idea that we need to be told that torture is wrong. I don’t know a single person who thinks waterboarding is all shits and giggles, and then everyone goes home happy. Even if you’re rabidly pro-torture, you still aren’t going to think it’s pleasant. Because that’s the whole point of torture, and every single goddamn person on the planet knows it. Releasing this for public consumption makes a very clear statement, and that statement is “you’re allowing this to happen.” Which is a heartless, terrible thing to insinuate.
You will notice that nowhere in here have I linked to the video. Don’t expect me to. In all honesty, I wish I hadn’t seen it myself. The idea of this running in movie theaters across the country is disgusting and insulting. If someone made me the offer that no one would ever see this ad again, but that Two Girls One Cup would run before every single children’s television program, I would take that deal. Because Two Girls One Cup at least appeals to somebody.
There is, however, another movie I will link to:
Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. Seriously. You won’t regret it.
Did you watch it?
Fuckers?
Ok, good. While my hat goes off to James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, for restoring my faith in humanity, his latest video brings to the surface a dark secret, one which I can carry no longer. I just don’t see what the big deal with Super Mario Bros 3 is.
Sure, it’s inspired one of the best things I’ve ever read, but I still don’t get the appeal. It doesn’t feel anything like the original Super Mario Bros I fell in love with, and it’s way too long, especially since it has no save system. Super Mario World managed to capture every good point of SMB3, but also retain the tight, crunchy physics of the original. Plus the feather kicks the leaf’s ass any day of the week. The flying in that game is so deep, it’s amazing what a good player can do with it. It’s funny, the way people felt about SMB3, how it was a return to form after the weird experiment that was 2, is exactly how I felt about Super Mario World.
So to those of you who think SMB3 is better than World, you’ve got it backward. Sure, 3 did it first, but world did it better. You’re being blinded by nostalgia. Also, don’t look now, but all those licensed NES games you thought were so awesome when you were a kid are absolute garbage.
Final thought:
My DVR just updated its software, and during that process it decided to download the movie “Wild Hogs.” I don’t think I’ve ever hated DIRECTV more than I do right now.
In a desperate and tasteless attempt at being clever, the ad begins on a beauty shot of water being poured. The camera then pans downward, and we get a several seconds of high speed footage of a man being waterboarded. Yes, actually waterboarded, as in not a special effect or other type of trickery. That’s right, Amnesty-Goddamn-Motherfucking-International tortured someone to make a commercial denouncing the use of torture.
Okay, so Amnesty International decided that their message of anti-torture was so important that they tortured some guy to get it out there, but the question going through my mind is, why? Who are they trying to convince? Are they sending this tape directly to the White House? No, they are releasing it to theaters to run before the trailers. Meaning its intended audience is us, the general public. To say this caused me to sigh would be an understatement. To say it caused me to throw a pipe through the front windshield of my car would be an overstatement, but closer. Let’s just say it caused me to sigh so hard I might have changed the tides.
I’m guessing whoever came up with this idea doesn’t live in America. In fact, I find it hard to believe they live anywhere near the human race. I resent the idea that we need to be told that torture is wrong. I don’t know a single person who thinks waterboarding is all shits and giggles, and then everyone goes home happy. Even if you’re rabidly pro-torture, you still aren’t going to think it’s pleasant. Because that’s the whole point of torture, and every single goddamn person on the planet knows it. Releasing this for public consumption makes a very clear statement, and that statement is “you’re allowing this to happen.” Which is a heartless, terrible thing to insinuate.
You will notice that nowhere in here have I linked to the video. Don’t expect me to. In all honesty, I wish I hadn’t seen it myself. The idea of this running in movie theaters across the country is disgusting and insulting. If someone made me the offer that no one would ever see this ad again, but that Two Girls One Cup would run before every single children’s television program, I would take that deal. Because Two Girls One Cup at least appeals to somebody.
There is, however, another movie I will link to:
Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. Seriously. You won’t regret it.
Did you watch it?
Fuckers?
Ok, good. While my hat goes off to James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, for restoring my faith in humanity, his latest video brings to the surface a dark secret, one which I can carry no longer. I just don’t see what the big deal with Super Mario Bros 3 is.
Sure, it’s inspired one of the best things I’ve ever read, but I still don’t get the appeal. It doesn’t feel anything like the original Super Mario Bros I fell in love with, and it’s way too long, especially since it has no save system. Super Mario World managed to capture every good point of SMB3, but also retain the tight, crunchy physics of the original. Plus the feather kicks the leaf’s ass any day of the week. The flying in that game is so deep, it’s amazing what a good player can do with it. It’s funny, the way people felt about SMB3, how it was a return to form after the weird experiment that was 2, is exactly how I felt about Super Mario World.
So to those of you who think SMB3 is better than World, you’ve got it backward. Sure, 3 did it first, but world did it better. You’re being blinded by nostalgia. Also, don’t look now, but all those licensed NES games you thought were so awesome when you were a kid are absolute garbage.
Final thought:
My DVR just updated its software, and during that process it decided to download the movie “Wild Hogs.” I don’t think I’ve ever hated DIRECTV more than I do right now.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Last Optimist
It seems the entire world has gone cynical.
And here I sit, seemingly the last person on earth with a positive outlook on humanity. Every day pop environmentalists decry our voracious rape of our planet, the news brays on about every violent or disturbing act, and men of the cloth berate the nature of their subjects in order to save their immortal lucre. The word human has become a dirty word, and that is deeply disturbing to me.
I’ve already established that I never really had faith in any god, and I believe when used in this way that faith is a very poisonous concept. But I’m not altogether opposed to the very idea of faith. In fact, I think faith is a very important thing for people to have, you just need to have faith in something real. For me, the easiest thing for me to latch onto was people. I believe in people. I believe that our species is doing just great, and that each day we’re better off than the day before. We’ve cured deadly diseases once thought incurable, we can cross continents in a matter of hours, and we can communicate with people on the other side of the world nearly instantaneously. We’ve raised our species’ life expectancy by 50 years. Suddenly, turning water to wine or making a whole bunch of fish and bread doesn’t seem so impressive. Not to mention that unlike those stories, I’ve personally witnessed humanity’s miracles, and so can anyone.
So I was understandably disinterested when while flipping through the radio the other day I came across coverage of the Pope’s visit to the US. After all, someone like Mark Twain can put more insight into a single sentence than that old coot has ever come up with in his entire life. But, every other station was on commercial break, so I continued to listen. And I have to say, of all the misanthropes out there, the Pope is by far the most vile.
As with all matters of the Catholic church, it was only a matter of time before the topic of molestation came up. The Pope did a spectacular job of covering his own ass, and placing the blame entirely on the priests who committed the acts. Now, I’m no big fan of molesting children, but let’s face it, those guys were as much victimized as the kids. When under stress, like say the stress of living your life with no form of sexual release, the mind finds it much easier to rationalize things. These priests have been taught that if they break their vow and defile themselves with women, that they will burn in hell for eternity. Children, on the other hand, are a loophole, more of an indiscretion than unpardonable sin, and they can be forgiven for that. Now that’s what I call a broken system, one where having consensual sex with an adult is a worse crime than raping a child.
And here’s why the Pope is the biggest cynic in the world: he can make this whole stupid, scary situation go away just by saying the following words, “I decree that priests can have girlfriends.” But he doesn’t say that, and one begins to wonder why. Actually, that wondering person is rhetorical, because I know exactly why. Because priests have been celibate since the church was founded, shit, it’s even in the Bible. To admit that they’ve been wrong for almost two thousand years would severely undermine their base of power. Admitting your organization is fallible when your whole claim to fame is based on divinity is definitely going to cause some upheaval. Sure, the Catholic church has had a lot of fuckups in the past which they’ve had to apologize for, but they’ve never had to go back on one of their core doctrines before. The Pope is scared shitless of this reaction, so instead he continues to ruin lives so he can keep wearing his fancy hat. If you’re not grasping the severity of the situation, I’d like you to note that following sentence contains absolutely no hyperbole. If you have the opportunity to end a great deal of suffering just by speaking a phrase, and you don’t, that makes you among the worst people in the world.
It only lasted a few minutes, but after hearing it I felt completely drained. It was depressing. Worst of all, I could feel myself starting lose my humanistic optimism. Because this was starting to feel like a pattern. I remembered when the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo scandals broke, and in a fit of ass covering, the sole guilt of these terrible practices was dumped on a bunch of innocent soldiers who were just carrying out their orders. I thought of how Utah leads the nation in unreported rape cases, because nobody wants to contradict the crazy old men who were considered prophets who said that a woman should choose death before surrendering her “honor.” It becomes very hard to remain hopeful of human nature when so many people independently do the same terrible things.
All the same, I refuse to accept it. Maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe the true nature of humanity is ugly, rotten, and evil. But I can’t live my life believing it. Because thinking this way is poisonous and abusive. You know how when you know someone believes in you, it makes you want to do your best so you won’t let them down? Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to be that person for the entire human race. So, against all evidence to the contrary, I’m going to believe in people. And even if it doesn’t do any good, then I’m still going to do it anyway, because I’m going to be way happier than the cynics. Because to me, the world is a more beautiful place than they can even imagine. And you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
And here I sit, seemingly the last person on earth with a positive outlook on humanity. Every day pop environmentalists decry our voracious rape of our planet, the news brays on about every violent or disturbing act, and men of the cloth berate the nature of their subjects in order to save their immortal lucre. The word human has become a dirty word, and that is deeply disturbing to me.
I’ve already established that I never really had faith in any god, and I believe when used in this way that faith is a very poisonous concept. But I’m not altogether opposed to the very idea of faith. In fact, I think faith is a very important thing for people to have, you just need to have faith in something real. For me, the easiest thing for me to latch onto was people. I believe in people. I believe that our species is doing just great, and that each day we’re better off than the day before. We’ve cured deadly diseases once thought incurable, we can cross continents in a matter of hours, and we can communicate with people on the other side of the world nearly instantaneously. We’ve raised our species’ life expectancy by 50 years. Suddenly, turning water to wine or making a whole bunch of fish and bread doesn’t seem so impressive. Not to mention that unlike those stories, I’ve personally witnessed humanity’s miracles, and so can anyone.
So I was understandably disinterested when while flipping through the radio the other day I came across coverage of the Pope’s visit to the US. After all, someone like Mark Twain can put more insight into a single sentence than that old coot has ever come up with in his entire life. But, every other station was on commercial break, so I continued to listen. And I have to say, of all the misanthropes out there, the Pope is by far the most vile.
As with all matters of the Catholic church, it was only a matter of time before the topic of molestation came up. The Pope did a spectacular job of covering his own ass, and placing the blame entirely on the priests who committed the acts. Now, I’m no big fan of molesting children, but let’s face it, those guys were as much victimized as the kids. When under stress, like say the stress of living your life with no form of sexual release, the mind finds it much easier to rationalize things. These priests have been taught that if they break their vow and defile themselves with women, that they will burn in hell for eternity. Children, on the other hand, are a loophole, more of an indiscretion than unpardonable sin, and they can be forgiven for that. Now that’s what I call a broken system, one where having consensual sex with an adult is a worse crime than raping a child.
And here’s why the Pope is the biggest cynic in the world: he can make this whole stupid, scary situation go away just by saying the following words, “I decree that priests can have girlfriends.” But he doesn’t say that, and one begins to wonder why. Actually, that wondering person is rhetorical, because I know exactly why. Because priests have been celibate since the church was founded, shit, it’s even in the Bible. To admit that they’ve been wrong for almost two thousand years would severely undermine their base of power. Admitting your organization is fallible when your whole claim to fame is based on divinity is definitely going to cause some upheaval. Sure, the Catholic church has had a lot of fuckups in the past which they’ve had to apologize for, but they’ve never had to go back on one of their core doctrines before. The Pope is scared shitless of this reaction, so instead he continues to ruin lives so he can keep wearing his fancy hat. If you’re not grasping the severity of the situation, I’d like you to note that following sentence contains absolutely no hyperbole. If you have the opportunity to end a great deal of suffering just by speaking a phrase, and you don’t, that makes you among the worst people in the world.
It only lasted a few minutes, but after hearing it I felt completely drained. It was depressing. Worst of all, I could feel myself starting lose my humanistic optimism. Because this was starting to feel like a pattern. I remembered when the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo scandals broke, and in a fit of ass covering, the sole guilt of these terrible practices was dumped on a bunch of innocent soldiers who were just carrying out their orders. I thought of how Utah leads the nation in unreported rape cases, because nobody wants to contradict the crazy old men who were considered prophets who said that a woman should choose death before surrendering her “honor.” It becomes very hard to remain hopeful of human nature when so many people independently do the same terrible things.
All the same, I refuse to accept it. Maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe the true nature of humanity is ugly, rotten, and evil. But I can’t live my life believing it. Because thinking this way is poisonous and abusive. You know how when you know someone believes in you, it makes you want to do your best so you won’t let them down? Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to be that person for the entire human race. So, against all evidence to the contrary, I’m going to believe in people. And even if it doesn’t do any good, then I’m still going to do it anyway, because I’m going to be way happier than the cynics. Because to me, the world is a more beautiful place than they can even imagine. And you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
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