Life is Weird, etc, etc.

Despite being a reasonable person, I still am often optimistic beyond reasonable expectations, which probably explains why I thought that John Kerry would win in the last Presidential election. "Certainly," I said, "President Bush's remarkably low approval rating will encourage voters to pick the other guy." "And of course," I continued, "all of those kids who go to those war protests and write angry blogs will be motivated and turn out record numbers of young people to vote for John Kerry." "And really," I concluded, "you couldn't possibly vote for a silver-spoon duty-dodger over a thrice-medaled war veteran and honest-to-god hero!"

Of course, on all of those counts, I was wrong. I didn't take into account the fact that while people love to complain, very few people ever do anything about it. I also negelected to imagine the sheer number of wild smear campaigns that Bush supporters would enact against John Kerry, most notably the swift-boat bs, nor did I realize how many people would fall for something so stupid and factually inaccurate. And I didn't take into account the voter fraud and irregularities that would occur in swing states like Ohio. Oh, and I nearly forgot, people care more about abortions and gay marriage - which the Republicans love to talk about but never want to act on for fear of losing the issue and because the majority of Americans are on the other side of those issues - than about the safety of our country or the health of our economy for the common person.

It is this same unthinking optimism that has me believing that not only can Barack Obama beat a Clinton - second only to the Bush's as far as modern political dynasties go - but that an African-American son of an immigrant and product of an inter-racial marriage who spent much of his youth outside of the continental United States and has an unusual name that reminds people of villians...will become our next President. It makes perfect sense to me that he will win. Why wouldn't he? He's on the right side of all the issues. He has integrity. He's honest. He inspires with his words and impresses with his dignity. He appeals to our better angels and not our basest fears. Not to mention, he's just plain cool. You'll never catch him doing a tap dance on the steps of the White House like George Bush, or doing some terrible Sopranos spoof like Hillary Clinton. Why wouldn't people vote for him?

Of course, if I can tap into future Chris' consciousness...for the same reasons they never vote for the good guy. Because, in this coming year, and starting already, people will convince them of things that aren't true simply by saying them. Fox News says he went to a Muslim school. It doesn't matter that within a half-hour every news source in the world, Fox News included, debunked that story. People heard it, and they only remember the first part, not the retraction. The majority of voters in the south believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Why? I don't even think there was ever a news story claiming it was true, not even from Fox Noise (thanks, Keith). But they heard he's got a funny name and collectively all decided he was probably a Muslim. Not that it should matter, either, but it's ridiculous since the same people who won't vote for him because they think he's a Muslim are the ones that would vote exclusively for him for being a devout Christian, which he is.

And I'm sure that come election time there will be rumors and allegations of shady business dealings or marital indescretions or secret drug problems, none of which will be true, and no one will remember that the same rumors dogged George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and that it didn't stop them from voting for those guys.

So, I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic that the right man, at the right time, for the right reasons will be elected President. I'm optimistic that it will mean something to our spirit here in America and will repair our reputation worldwide. I'm optimistic that the environment will get safer and the air cleaner. I'm optimistic that good shows will be renewed and that, eventually, people will stop watching that crazy lie-detector show. I'm optimistic that I'll be appreciated and that jerks will suffer.
But hey, who knows.

Whole Darn World's Gone Crazy

Janeane Garofalo used to do this comedy routine about the absurd arguments between different religions all based on the word of a book, and how it was as if people had declared "The Bridges of Madison County" sacred ground on which nobody builds. It's disturbing just how accurate an interpretation that is.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour did a three-part special report entitled "God's Warriors" where she looked at extremists in the three major monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The impression you come away with can only be described as appalled disbelief. You normally assume that people turn to religion to find peace and satisfaction. But instead, many of these people couldn't be more miserable. Everything angers them, everything hurts them, and they are constantly dissatisfied with everything. Not only that, but when peace and accomodation become possible, they often provoke conflict where there was none.

It's maddening, and it's enough to make a rational person think that the whole lot of them are completely insane from start to finish. Jewish settlers who are surprised when Arabs are mad that they've been kicked off the land they own, and blame the Arabs for the atrocities of Germans. Muslim women who are angry when Westerners question the fact that they have to be covered head-to-toe, and yet act surprised when they aren't allowed to run for public office in the theocracies they defend so vehemently. And Christians...oh those American Christians.

I can't speak as authoritatively on other religions because while I've read a lot, I've never lived them. Christianity, though...I've had an insiders look, and sometimes it's terrifying. There's a distinct difference between "Christianity": the philosophical belief that promotes charity, humility, love, and moral behavior; and the special brand of Christianity that we think of when we see television evangilists, Republican Senators, and homeschool documentaries. They talk about abortion and gay marriage as though Jesus and Moses had reached down from Heaven and personally written a whole new book of the bible about them. Yet greed and gluttony, which are mentioned in the same book as being worse sins than sleeping with a man, are given a pass. Did they get a special Bible decoder ring that the rest of us didn't, which tells them which sins god really cares about, and which ones he was just kidding about? It's okay to be fat, and materialistic, and step over homeless people on the street...but don't even think about telling someone of the same sex that you love them, cause that's just wrong.

In all the religions, the broader themes of the religions - things like love, good works, introspection, peace - are overlooked in favor of minutae. Things like dress codes, holy sites, and ritual take precedence over actual substance and real character. The worst part is that whole new generations of young people are being privately schooled away from any differing viewpoints, indoctrinated and brainwashed, and left with an even more narrow, watered down, unwaveringly selective view of these faiths. Like the kids in Teen Mania (seriously, that name alone is telling) who blame popular music and Paris Hilton for the fact that their parents abandoned them and that they liked drinking and having sex in high school. If listening to music makes you do bad things, it's not because of the music, it's because you're an idiot. Playing violent video games doesn't make you commit violence - being a poorly raised psychopath who thinks Grand Theft Auto is tame does.

And if your faith makes you want to fight other people, it's not because god wants you to, it's because you're a jerk.

Life Begins at Contemplation

Anyone who pays attention to politics, or at least the polarizing, media-hyped, red-state/blue-state politics that is trumpeted during any election - or the 2 years leading up to one - are presented with certain bullet points; one being that Republicans hate all non-white people and Democrats want Mexican Islamic terrorists to move into your neighborhood and date your daughter. Another is that Republicans think life begins at the mere thought about having sex with your girlfriend while Democrats think children up to 8 years of age can be murdered as long as it's for "a good reason". Exaggerations? Yes. Far from how it's usually depicted? No. Abortion is a divisive issue for many people which would be perfectly understandable to me except many of those same people don't care so much when it comes to genocide ("That's all the way over on another continent") or the death penalty ("It says 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' - unless they kind of deserve it").

Here's the dirty little secret though that nobody tells you...
During President Clinton's terms in office, the number of abortions performed nationwide went down each year. During President Bush's terms, those numbers have gone up. Why? Well, it could have something to do with moral leadership, seeing as how Bill Clinton had morals (aside from the whole adultery thing) and George Bush has PR people to say he has morals. But really, it's much colder and simpler. When people have money, jobs, and educational opportunities, they have fewer abortions. See, people with money are more likely to have the baby since they'll actually be able to feed and clothe the baby. People with good jobs will actually have the baby when they're pregnant because they'll have health insurance to take care of it and won't have to be worried about finding someone willing to hire them while they're 6 months pregnant. And people who are educated are smart enough to not spend all of their free time on their back with their drunken paramour and are also wise enough to use contraception. However, when you're the kind of President who tells schools that condoms and sex education are sinful and abstinence is the only thing worth teaching, then when teens eventually do have sex - and they will - then they do it unsafely and before they are intellectually and emotionally prepared. That's what leads to abortions.

And oddly enough, the perceived sin of contraception in America also leads to abortions the world over. See, President Reagan in all of his wisdom initiated a policy that prevents the United States from providing aid of any kind to overseas clinics that perform or even inform people about the option of abortion. That aid includes contraceptives. We are so appalled that they are giving abortions to people who are unintentionally pregnant that we are refusing to give them the tools to prevent those people from having more unplanned pregnancies and thus...more abortions. Cause really, if you let it happen once, chances are you may let it happen again.

The House of Representin' just passed a bill that would overturn that policy, and no doubt if it passes the Senate, President Bush will be waiting with his stamp and pen to veto it, but honestly, how irresponsible is that? I can understand if he doesn't want to give them money because that could be used to actually facilitate abortions. But this is just giving them contraceptives...a means to prevent unwanted pregnancies and thus prevent abortions. I believe in personal responsibility, and believe that no one should ever have an abortion if only because no one should ever put themselves in a situation to become pregnant when they aren't willing and/or able to take care of that child - though of course that's sometimes unpreventable. So, like most Democrats, I believe the mantra that abortion should be "legal, safe, and rare". President Bush however seems to think they should be "illegal, dangerous, and performed often instead of educating people on safe sex, encouraging responsible behavior, and trying to help poor people to a level where they can economically take care of a family" (albeit that is a much less-catchy mantra).

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say "How dare you, Republicans, be supporting more abortion! I for one think there should be fewer abortions, and that's why I support this bill!"

That would make an awesome bumper sticker.

The First Amendment Extends to High Fives

In fact, I think the original text was "The necessity of demonstrating through physical means the awesomeness of a given event, the right to High Five your bros shall not be infringed". Damn John Adams had to stand in the way, yet again.
A school in Vienna, Virginia has a strict "no touching" policy, which makes sense when you consider that most touching between adolescents is inappropriate, whether it's the awkward groping of the first "for reals" girlfriend, the homoerotic ass slapping of "straight" athletes, or the numerous physical tortures perpetrated on the whole of the chess team/av club. So really, on the surface it seems normal. But this policy is so strict in fact that a student got in trouble for putting his arm on his girlfriend's shoulder when he leaned down to say something to her at her lunch table. Surely, you would think that even in this hyper-sensitive, overly-cautious, dateline-myspace-predator obsessed day and age we could distinguish and allow for consensual, non-sexual, non-violent touching. Of course, you'd be wrong.

On CNN, they spoke to the head of the PTA (because the school was at least smart enough not to try and defend such a crazy policy). This woman then espoused the dangers of even the "high-five" (as the kids are calling it these days). Her reasoning is this: when you and your buddy are high-fiving in the hallway, of course other people are gonna wanna get in on that action. Soon a third person is high-fiving you, then four, then five people are high-fiving in a virtual orgy of celebratory hand-slapping. In such a situation, traffic in the hallway would come to a complete standstill as, almost contagiously, all of the students break into spontaneous high-fives. Elbows would fly, legs would kick, and people would be bound to get hit in the head. Despite my exaggerations, that last sentence was literally what she said would happen. I mean, I know just what she's saying. When you and your friends are high-fiving, you get so caught up that you can't help but kick your heels and flail your arms wildly. Sure, someone always gets hit in the eye, and more than once I've had a friend end up in the hospital, but it's so worth it for an awesome, full-power high-five.

The other argument for the policy, suggested by the school, is that some handshakes are actually secret gang signs. Luckily though, if you don't allow people to do those handshakes in school, the entire gang network breaks down. In fact, the only reason I ever joined a gang was for the cool handshakes. If I couldn't high-five my gangmates (that's what they call them, right?) in school the next day after a sweet drive-by shooting, I don't think I would have joined. "Hardly worth it," I would have said.

The only thing possibly more absurd was the father of the boy who was at the center of the news story that first sent me on this rant. Just as he was proclaiming that high-fives are constitutionally guaranteed as free speech (though not in as concise terms or complete sentences for that matter) he also stated that people of other cultural heritages who attend the school who might not be so into physical contact in the classroom should adapt to be more American when they come here...you know, since the things we do make so much sense.

It's so much harder when you disagree with everyone on every side of an issue.

You're Just Never Satisfied

You know what bugs me about modern media? It has become too interactive. You can look up things at your leisure on the internet, or text in your votes with your cell phone, or e-mail the pundits your opinions, or get the DVD with 10 different possible endings because the studio wanted to satisfy every single person in the world. People have so many options, and so much input, that they start to feel like other people owe them; they start to feel like they should have some sort of creative input into everything.

Worst of all is television. Take, for example, Lost. This year, it got tons of flack from fans, who also gave it intermitent flack last year, because they wanted all of the mysteries answered in every episode. Of course, that would be stupid since if you answered all of the questions, it would no longer be a mystery, and then you'd just have a show about a bunch of people who used to be stranded on an island, and where's the fun in that?

But their complaint was that the show wasn't what they wanted, and yet they continued to watch it, or at least talk about it, when really...the show was what it always was. Plus, it was free, so they were free to just watch something else or nothing at all. My feeling with creative endeavours, whether they be books or movies, music or television is that people have a story to tell...if it entertains me and I enjoy it, so be it. If not, then I'll find that somewhere else and maybe someone other than me will enjoy what they have to say. When American Idol comes on I don't watch it and complain about what I want the show to be...I just don't watch it. It's their show, not mine.

The other problem is that people start to blame the artist for the audience's expectations. My sister will often complain about a perfectly good movie she saw simply because it wasn't what she thought it would be. Meaning, she sees the trailer and, for whatever reasons, thinks the solution to the mystery was going to be more supernatural or that the romance of the lead characters was going to be a bigger deal, and then blames the movie for not being what she expected or wanted rather than being pretty good at what it was. A movie or a show is what it is, or at least what the makers want it to be. Should it be their fault that it isn't what we expect, even if our expectations are based on nothing to do with them?

My point is about The Sopranos. A show I like, but probably not as the be-all-end-all that some people think. It's a quality show that is interesting, unconventional, and at times insightful. Is it the word handed down by some supreme deity to change our world like the monolith from 2001? No, nor does it need to be. It is what it is, and quite good at it. But, somewhere during the long break between the 5th and 6th season, people seem to have forgotten what that show was really about. In their memories, they remember all of the crazy hits, the strippers, the drugs, the mob fights and surprises. What they don't seem to remember is that 80% of the show was always therapy sessions, dream sequences, ambiguous glances, and silent scenes with characters deep in thought. The problem is The Sopranos was an unconventional show from the start, but it also attracted a huge audience of people who would be equally pleased if every episode was just wall-to-wall sex with strippers with brief interludes of massive explosions killing dozens of people with no talking whatsoever. They complain that this show has gotten worse, and there's not as much action, but if they were paying attention, this show is exactly what it has been all along. It's barely changed at all.

So why are they all so up in arms about the finale? First, is there any ending that would have pleased everyone? Some people wanted Tony to die, or to end up in jail, or they wanted Phil and everyone he knows to die, and others wanted AJ to kill himself or Meadow to die or Janice to become a mob boss or any number of crazy theories, none of which would have made anyone happy. If anything, David Chase gave the audience exactly what it wanted...an ending that implied something, but left enough room for people to interpret whatever ending they wanted.

The fact is, the show is what it always has been, and nothing would have satisfied people's expectations. The finale of The Sopranos was great, if only because it knew that it was better to serve the needs of the show than the varied and unreasonable expectations of a fickle and uncreative audience. They complain that this ending was open ended, but what ending wouldn't have been? Nothing is ever completely wrapped up. Unless the show ended with Tony building a doomsday device that would blow up the entire Earth, then after the show ended, these characters were always going to go on and do other things and live their lives without us watching. At least they didn't try to have some cheesy or sappy or silly ending (like Seinfeld perhaps) that would have betrayed the essence of the show. Stop bitching people. David Chase doesn't owe you anything. You don't like the ending, too bad, it's not their fault. It's yours. Go buy Sex in the City on DVD and enjoy it.

No Place Like Homeworld

So earlier today I was watching the BBC/Discovery Channel series "Planet Earth" because hey, who doesn't like to hear about their own planet. It's easy, especially when you live in a densely urban metropolis like New York City (or all of New Jersey for that matter), that there are vast stretches of the world that don't have buildings and electricity and highways and Fox News (oh what a wonderful place that would be). The things that are out there, and down there and way up there, are mind-blowing (much like last night's season finale of Battlestar Galactica, but let's not go there). It's impressive, and a little sad too given that many of these creatures are bound to die out because of human expansion.

To be fair, nature is harsh, and when one species expands, others tend to suffer, and I'm not suggesting that it should be us to suffer. I'm supporting the home team. But as much as possible, we should protect the natural world, if only so we can go make interesting documentaries about it. For instance, feel free to eradicate all of the viruses you want, and the giant, creepy looking fish that live in the depths of the oceans can f*ck themselves for all I care. But really, we can stretch our legs, build our cities, and still find room for Elephants and Penguins, right? With only minimal effort we can reserve some biodiversity. If you want to think of it in selfish terms, the more species there are, the more we can learn about life in general and perhaps one day we'll learn that the cure for cancer can be found in some obscure creature that we were just paving over, literally.

It should also be noted that studies have found that humans have a natural fondness for the appearance of young animals, especially mammals. Now, it doesn't take a detailed study to tell me that baby polar bears are adorable, but they've found that this adoration crosses species, meaning that even a Wolf thinks it's adorable when your kid runs around the house in his feety pajamas. Genetically, naturally, we have an inclination to be fond of the young...meaning that across the board we are less likely to kill young creatures, even though they are helpless and it would be easy, thus ensuring that more animals will survive to adulthood. So it's not just tree-hugging hippies, but all people who are, through the miracle of evolution, compelled to protect life, even when it's not our own or even our own species'.

But on that note, what is wrong with Germans? Yes, that's a phrase I've probably used often, but I'm sure you've heard of the German "environmentalists" who are demanding a baby polar bear in captivity be killed because it's mother rejected it. Their argument is that in the wild, without its mother caring for it, it would be dead, and so the natural thing to do is kill it. But really, once you're taking animals out of the wild and putting them in small cages where you feed them out of a bucket at regular intervals, haven't you thrown natural selection out the window. Yes, nature is cruel sometimes, but that doesn't mean we have to keep it going. This bear is most likely never going back out into the wild, and if it does, sure it may not be able to take care of itself, but that's no reason we have to end its life now. You know what, if a human baby was rejected by its mother and left in the wild, it would die too, but we still have orphanages. We don't leave them to fend for themselves. It's one thing to allow nature to happen and not want to interfere in natural occurences, but it's quite another to idolize nature as though anything that happens naturally should be encouraged or idolized. There's a reason people built societies, because nature has a lot of flaws.

So, to some up: Nature can be stupid, but let's try to keep a lot of it just in case. Also, feel free to kill anything with tentacles, cause those things freak the hell out of me.

Why You Gotta Pick on the Fat Kid?

Everyone gets a label. At some point everyone latches on to a particular aspect of a person and that becomes their defining feature, even if that feature changes or completely dissappears. It's simplistic and often mean-spirited, but there's no doubt that it's the way it is.

And so it goes that Al Gore can't be mentioned in any sentence without an adjacent sentence mentioning his weight gain. I feel like the news media, in their attempts to be viewed as balanced assume that if they are going to mention something positive about Al Gore that it has to be tempered with something negative...like "Al Gore starred in an Academy Award winning documentary, but hasn't he let himself go."

That's right, fatty. I know we're supposed to be talking about global warming or whatever, but let's talk about your weight first. Every news report, every article, every mention of Al Gore now comes with a requisite mention of his Oscar win (which is always wrong because even though it was undoubtably his achievement, he himself did not win the Oscar since he didn't direct the film) and a mention of his weight gain. It's not like he's suddenly morbidly obese and can't fit through his front door, which might at least be newsworthy psychologically speaking. What does his weight or appearance have to do with anything he's saying or anything that's being reported about him?

That's especially true when you consider that this is a country where the majority of the people are overweight. Al Gore, a man who was voted for by a majority of the people, has simply become a little more like them...physically. You might also remember that this was the same treatment Bill Clinton got when he entered office. There were no scandals yet, and he was trying to talk about National Health Care and ending discrimination in the armed forces...but all people could mention was his love of fast food.

We've had Presidents who were dangerously obese, and any number of people in the Senate, the Judiciary, and every facet of average american life who are not merely overweight, but rotundly fat...but Al Gore gains a couple of pounds and suddenly that overshadows his message. I suppose we only take our threats of global destruction from people with six-pack abs. Well, maybe he's been too busy crisscrossing the country trying to warn people about the ongoing destruction of our natural environment to stay in shape. Really, if most people can't find time between their 9-5 and watching American Idol to work out, why should we expect more of Al Gore who actually has something important to say? Why do people take such joy in mocking the appearance of others? And why should it be mentioned anywhere in a discussion of news? Well, that's when journalism becomes merely gossip with a few facts thrown in.