Goodbye, Blogger...

...it's been fun. But you've failed me once too often. Like today, when I couldn't post at all for awhile. Ah well. In any case, I'm jumping to my own site...

Hopefully, I'll be able to spruce it up a bit more over the next couple of months. Maybe when it gets ludicrously cold outside and I'll want to do nothing more than curl up by a warm laptop for the evening...

Anyone who wants to come and visit is more than welcome.

World War III: Electric Boogaloo

I admit it -- I'm cynical. I'm a dyed in the wool cynical bastard. When news came from Russia of a horrific hostage and siege scenario the second thing I thought was, "That sounds way too convenient." The first thing I thought was, "God, how awful." And then, recent "god, that's awful" events made me follow the next logical conclusion, which is: it's all a big plan. It either works deliberately (they paid someone to do something horrible in order to justify their actions) or unintentionally (they were so lax in their efforts and deliberately belligerent in their provocations, that they only had to wait for someone to do something horrific) and suddenly your government can get carte blanche to do pretty much whatever it wants in the guise of "security" or "safety." And, bam, you're living in a totalitarian dictatorship again. Wow, suddenly it's 1939 all over again. Instead of villifying an undeserved ethnic minority, we'll villify a religious one. Sure, whatever works in the service of creating totalitarian dictatorships the world over. And then we get to use our fancy weaponry and kill anyone we don't like without having to explain it and...hmm..sounding all too familiar to a certain country that I'm living in. Now, with Russia on the similar warpath, it's only a matter of time before things get way out of hand. Did anyone else read the Cat in the Hat when they were growing up? I'm always reminded of how thing 1 & thing 2 weren't able to get that stain out and in all of their odd efforts to do so, ended up spreading it even further. Violence begets violence in an endless cycle that then creates poverty (which begets violence). Asimov once wrote that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. At this stage of the game, we're dealing with a lot of people who have violated the Peter Principle (being promoted just beyond one's level of competency -- everyone in positions of power have gone 2 or 3 steps beyond their level of competency). And it doesn't look very good for the rest of the world. I wonder if the Doomsday Clock is milliseconds from midnight yet or not...

Hope this cheered everyone up on this gray Wednesday.

This conversation never happened

"Hello?"
"Hi, Mrs. Whimple?"
"Yes...who is this?"
"My name is Eli, I'm living in New York City and I'm calling you today to ask who you think you might be voting for in November."
"Oh, well...I was thinking that Bush was doing such a nice job, I'd just vote for him."
"What exactly is he doing that is a 'nice job?'"
Pause. "Well, not so much a nice job, just that I think he's a nice guy, I guess."
"Let me cut to the chase -- I tend to think that the only reason you can even consider supporting him is that you believe that abortion is wrong, gays shouldn't get married, and you believe that he's 'decisive.' Is that about where you stand?"
"Umm...yes, I suppose so."
"Okay, well let me run something by you, if I may. I was here in New York City when the GOP was having its little soiree. And I had friends who were arrested because they were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. They spent days -- not hours -- in a motor oil and asbestos filled warehouse picking up god knows what. Because they were standing in the wrong place."
"Where exactly are you going with this?"
"Where I'm going is, let's just say for argument's sake, you were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Yes? I suppose it could happen."
"It really happens every day -- someone crosses the street and a car happens to be making a weird turn and they get hit."
"That happened to my cousin Maurice."
"I'm terribly sorry to hear that."
"Oh, that's okay. Maurice just broke his hip and he was looking for a good reason to slow down."
"Oh, okay. So, you can imagine being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Yes, I guess so."
"Well, don't you think that maybe it ought to be the desire of your government to minimize those wrong places and wrong times. And not -- as was the case in New York City this past week -- to maximize the wrong place and wrong time."
"I guess I don't follow, exactly."
"Do you believe in God?"
"Yes, I do. I have a strong faith in God."
"That's good."
"And our president does, too, I'll have you know."
"Yes, I was aware of that. Let me ask you something -- you don't believe that gays should marry, correct?"
"Yes, I think it's an abomination of God's will."
"All right. Well, let me just say for example that God speaks to our president at some point and he says, 'Good going with those gays, George. Now, would you mind taking on that peculiar Protestant problem, for me.'"
"Excuse me? Protestant problem?"
"I hear that there are -- and this is purely hypothetical -- Protestants getting married. And that's just not right. Because they aren't born again. They don't believe in the right things."
"What you're saying is ridiculous?"
"Is it? What kind of God would tell you that it's okay to fence off some people, just because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you've created this state of wrong. So, you could easily designate anyone in that dimension -- do you like chocolate? Well, maybe God has decided that no one should eat chocolate anymore. And people who do, should be fenced up and put in a motor oil infested warehouse for days at a time."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, Mrs. Whimple, that things that people believe in -- for whatever their reasons -- are completely arbitrary. And it's not really our government's job to make people believe one thing or another. That's where the government does not belong. And I believe -- and I think this past week in New York City nicely backs up my assumptions -- that the current in power administration wants to get into the thought police business. They want to tell you what you can and cannot believe. And -- based on the long traditional history of people who talk to God on a regular basis -- what is right and wrong can shift at any moment. First, gays can't get married. Then people can't assemble freely in the street. Before you know it, we've got to do something about the jews. Or hispanics. Or blacks. Or whatever. And the only road away from this dismal fascist future is to raise up your voice and say that it's not the future that you want. That terrorism is awful. And the kind of intimidation and intolerance and thought control that is being practiced by the propagandists and policy wonks of the Republican party is no different than what a group of people such as al-Queda are doing. That's what I'm saying."
Silence.
"Mrs. Whimple?"

It's all about the guns.

Noticeably absent in the highlights reported by the media from the speeches last night is any mention of the economy. I'll have to check the full transcript, but it seems odd that -- as a capitalist country, which essentially lives and dies at the hand of its economy -- not focusing on this might be seen as a gaping hole in someone's stump speech. I'm sure that will be rectified when they start touting all of the minimum wage jobs that have been created, completely ignoring the lack of funding for education (and therefore trained, smart, capable future American entrepeneurs) and focusing instead on more funding for guns. Because, really, guns don't kill people...they make a country grow! Hey, if we have enough guns, we don't need to have reasonable, sane, sensible, intelligent, creative, capable citizens. We'll just find someone who does have those things and bully them until they give it to us. It worked for GWB in elementary school (probably), it'll work for the country now. So, look out world...and pony up your milk money now before we get really angry and devote our entire budget to buying all sorts of crazy weaponry. You've been warned.

This has been a message endorsed by the Society for Fascism in America (RNC) (Betcha didn't know that's what those letters stood for -- is it their fault that they never learned to spell? No education funding!)

whoa.

This is just a brief jotting of a note -- whilst I stew in my infuriated rant at what has happened to NYC in the guise of "security" (i.e. Martial Law) -- I was informed via email that the documentary that I directed/shot/edited on the gay marriages in San Francisco was accepted into the Seattle Gay & Lesbian Film Festival! This is indeed a very happy transpiring for me. Though, it means I will have to spend some long nights actually finishing it in its full High-definition glory...well, that's the kind of extra work that I can get behind. Hope to have some more happy news to report to counterbalance the unending supply of crap that seems to permeate the rest of the world stage.