Random Questions: People Really Know How To Piss Me Off Edition Part One

It's been a awhile, and so I present another segment of Random Questions!

- Why would you tag a deceased racist, homophobe senator's name to a bill he would have been staunchly against if he were alive? This week, North Carolina senator Elizabeth Dole earns the title of biggest dumbfuck of the week by trying to tag the late Jesse Helms' name to an AIDS bill.

Republican Senator Dole introduced an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the recently deceased Jesse Helms.

Uh, senator Dole....you are aware that Mr. Helms was staunchly against HIV/AIDS relief, and his comments on the subject might as well said 'those fags are the sole culprit for AIDS in this nation!'

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as "so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 2002 announced that he'd changed his mind about AIDS funding for Africa, but not for American gays, because homosexuality "is the primary cause of the doubling and redoubling of AIDS cases in the United States."

- Speaking of the dead senator from North Carolina, how could anyone praise the life of a man who made his name by opposing the Civil Rights movement to HIV/AIDS bills based on his racist and homophobic beliefs? That was one of the questions racing through my mind a few weeks ago when Mark Noonan and company defended and, in some cases, praised his legacy.

1. FmrMarine | July 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

Mark

We have truly lost a great man.
May he rest in peace, and our prayers are out for his family.

21. Jeremiah | July 5th, 2008 at 1:37 am

So, you see, kjs … the leftists here, like Rana, instead of desiring to unite around good, they want to unite around evil and that’s why they jump with glee of the passing of a great and courageous leader like Mr. Jesse Helms. Wanting us to compromise to join their evil ranks.

This is the type of mentality that the leftist indoctrination is turning out country into.

God help us as a Nation.

22. Mark Noonan | July 5th, 2008 at 2:31 am

So sad the way some of you liberals just hate, hate and then hate some more…and the saddest part of it is that you hate this man Jesse Helms not because of what you found out about him, but because of what others told you about him. You hate the man who’s heart bled for the children of Africa who suffered needlessly simply because for many, many years - under conservative and liberal leadership - the United States didn’t do the rather simple and relatively inexpensive things which make all the difference in the world. You hate the man who saw the re-emergence of slavery in Africa and unlike some, refused to explain it away and insisted we do something about it. You hate him, though you know him not…

25. Mark Noonan | July 5th, 2008 at 3:18 am

bongo,

Well, we’re actually just denying the leftwing fairy tales about Helms…the stories that he was a racist politician in the 1950’s, that he worked to keep black judges off the bench…that sort of thing. Of course, the real hatred of Jesse Helms stems from two things - he tried to stop government funding for displays of Mapplethorp’s pornography and, most importantly, Helms was an unapologetic and highly effective warrior for conservatism…

Uh, Mark: it's not a "left-wing fairy tale" that Helms was a racist politician....his bigotry and his support for dictators has been well-documented and it is an undeniable fact.

From Wikipedia:

Work for Capital Broadcasting Company

In 1960, Helms joined the Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Company. He was the executive vice-president, vice chairman of the board, and assistant chief executive officer. Helms daily CBC editorials on WRAL-TV in Raleigh gave him fame as a conservative commentator. The editorials, given at the end of each night's local news broadcast, made Helms famous throughout eastern North Carolina. The editorials featured folksy anecdotes interwoven with vivid conservative viewpoints. He referred to The News and Observer, his former employer, as the "Nuisance and Disturber" for its promotion of liberal views. Helms commented on the 1963 Civil Rights protests, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."[4] (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 1981-02-08) The University of North Carolina, which had a reputation as a bastion of liberalism in the state, was a frequent target of Helms' criticism: in one editorial he suggested a wall be erected around the campus to prevent the university's liberal views from "infecting" the rest of the state. Although his editorials created controversy, they also made him popular with conservative voters, and Helms won a seat on the Raleigh City Council in 1957. He served for four years. He was on CBC until he was elected to the Senate in 1972.

Helms worked on the unsuccessful 1960 Democratic primary gubernatorial campaign of I. Beverly Lake, Sr., who ran as a supporter of racial segregation. Lake was defeated by Terry Sanford, who ran as a racial moderate willing to implement the federal government's policy of school integration.

And here's info on his support for Salvadorian dictator Roberto D'Aubuisson.

Helms had close ties to the rightist Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson and was considered a main sponsor of D'Aubuisson's political party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance.[8] When confronted with evidence that D'Aubuisson ran death squads that systematically murdered civilians, he replied that "[a]ll I know, is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."[9]

Here's Helms and his reasons for opposing AIDS funding:

Helms was "bitterly opposed to federal financing of AIDS research and treatment".[12] Opposing the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988, Helms stated, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."[13] When Ryan White died in 1990, his mother went to Congress to speak to politicians on behalf of people with AIDS. She spoke to 23 representatives: Helms refused to speak to her even when she was alone with him in an elevator.[14] Despite opposition by Helms, the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Care (CARE) Act passed in 1990.

Having attempted, and failed, to block passage of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Care (CARE) Act passed in 1990, Helms tried to block its refunding in 1995, saying that those with AIDS were responsible for the disease, because they had contracted it because of their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct", and falsely claiming that more federal dollars were spent on AIDS than heart disease or cancer. [19] His opposition to the spending was consonant with his long term anti-gay rhetoric and opposition to civil rights for gay men and women generally. Helms had declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches."[20]

Only in your little world could you find a morally bankrupt human being and a known homophobe/bigot, a man worth showing praise.

But hey, thanks for outlining that this is the kind of company you and your ilk choose to happily and proudly align yourselves with.

Part two of Random Questions this week.....

Summertime Blues in San Diego

Summertime is here;
The flowers, the trees; all are full in bloom.


So why am I unable to shake Winter's icy blues?
Why am I unable to let go of my feelings for you?


I bike to Ocean Beach tryin' hard to forget;
All the shit you've put me through.


What happened to all the fun times we shared?
I guess it was all a lie when you said, 'I love you.'


Summertime in Dayago has come;
There's no relief from the heat this day.


Tell me, why'd you throw our love away?
How could you throw my love away?


Went out with my friends Tuesday night;
at the beach party, tryin' hard to get the feelin' right.


But there you were, hangin' with your new toy;
I left the scene in tears, before I start a verbal fight.


Just was I to you?
Was I something that could easily be replaced?


Like a battery for the remote,
Or a mistake to a test question; easy to erase?


Summertime is winding down;
The summer styles are being boxed away.


Just like how you threw our love away;
Just like how you threw my love away.

Subconscious Prison

I'm like a rat trapped in a cage
In this subconscious prison of mine
No cold steel bars are necessary
When your trapped inside your mind.





There's no guards to put me back in
No barb-wire fencing to stop me from making an escape
There's only walls upon walls upon walls
Of guilt, doubt, and feelings of sickening self hate.





Behind every inmate lies a crime
A heinous act condemned by the world
But I have committed no unspeakable felony
The world left me behind, simply left me behind.





I was an outcast, a stray dog to the rest of the world
Wasn't a certain drone; said no to what didn't feel real to me
So the world put me in this hellish cell
Destined to feel shunned for an eternity.





There's no ray of sunlight in this gray cell
No light at the end of the tunnel for me
There's no release date, no sympathetic visitors to see
Nothing but the stench of self pity and fear.

Aw, not this shit again!!!

The trailer to Disney's High School Musical 3: Senior Year as just leaked. And it's basically the same crap i've watched in HSM 1 and HSM 2. And yet, I know something like this will kill at the box office.

June Nights at the Movies

Finally, summer movies get really good. After the lackluster and somewhat disappointing start to the 2008 summer movie season, Hollywood cranks out some goodies to salivate over and over again. here's the list of the great, the awful, and the toss-ups I saw in the month of June.

Movie, best: Wall-E - Leave it to Pixar to show everyone else up when it comes to making a work of art in a summer movie season that beats the drums of mediocrity. Pixar has given us memorable movies - from Toy Story, to Finding Nemo, to last year's classic Ratatouille - but once again, they have outdone themselves yet again in this tale of a robot who's job it is to clean up after mankind leaves Earth after the mess it's made. Part heartwarming love story (the relationship between Wall-E and another robot named EVE), part optimistic dystopian story, part ode to classic sci-fi tales such as Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lucas's Star Wars, all 100% masterpiece from Disney/Pixar, and the best film so far this year.
**** stars out of ****

Movie, worst: The Happening - Remember awhile back when I said that M. Night Shyamalan was back after Lady in the Water? Turns out he wasn't. I've defended Shyamalan thought most of his career, but after this wannabe version of Hitchcock's The Birds, i'm beginning to believe that maybe he's just a one trick pony who quickly running out of tricks. The Happening has a promising opening and an idea: the eastern seaboard is hit by an environmental event in which plants release toxins that make people commit mass suicide. Unfortunately, from there, Shyamalan resorts to using the same old tricks he's used in past movies: philosophical metaphors, focusing on troubled characters, etc. It's such a shame to watch great actors in Mark Walberg and Zooey Deschanel drag in M. Night's hit-and miss disturbing eco-thriller (disturbing in the methods of how people kill themselves), but even more shameful to watch this once talented filmmaker resort himself to making shit like this.
* star out of ***

Surprise, biggest: The Incredible Hulk - Unlike The Happening which I had high hopes for, I thought this new version of 2003's boring Hulk would be a total suck-fest. But it turns out that a new director (Louis Letterier in place of Ang Lee), and a new lead actor (the great Ed Norton in place of Eric Bana as Dr. Bruce Banner and his mean, green killing machine alter ego) was just what the doctor ordered. Banner's trying to find a cure for his exposure to high levels of gamma rays, while trying to stay a step ahead of the U.S. military who'll stop at nothing to capture him and use him as a weapon for the government. Tim Roth is great as Blonsky, the militarist who wants to use Bruce's power for his own ends, Liv Tyler does the cliched loved interest and loyal partner well as Betsy Ross, Bruce's dream girl, and William Hurt is excellent as Betsy's bastard father/general who's willing to put her own daughter in prison for aiding Banner. The action sequences are exciting, but not thrilling where you actually fear a green monster and his evil arch nemesis, The Abomination, clash and create havoc and destruction over New York City. When it's all said and done though, Incredible Hulk delivers the goods, which is more than I could say for The Happening.
*** stars out of ****

Comedy Wars: Who Lost? With movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up and Superbad, and the upcoming Pineapple Express, Judd Apatow is the newly appointed comedy czar. But this month, his status has been knocked down a tad, thanks in part to him helping pen the awful Israeli/Palestinian parody, You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Apatow and Adam Sandler have a funny premise: an Israeli soldier fakes his own death in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a hair stylist in NYC. His chance comes when takes a hair styling job in.....a Palestinian-owned hair shop. Funny idea, would make for some great geopolitical humor, but the jokes just don't stick to you. That, and the script relies on too many sex jokes involving Sandler's Zohan giving old ladies happy endings. And will somebody please tell that unfunny douche Rob Schnider to quit starring in movies, for God's sake?
* 1/2 stars out of ****

Comedy Wars: Who Won? Steve Carell wins this round. His portrayal of bumbling field analyst-turned spy Maxwell Smart in Get Smart works like a charm. So what if the action falls flat at times? Carell, backed up by the lovely Anne Hathaway as femme fatal Agent 99 and (suprise!) Dwayne Johnson as Smart's friend, Agent 23, make up for it in strides of laughter and slapstick comedy.
*** stars our of ****
Runner up is another surprise: Jack Black voicing Po in Kung-Fu Panda. Sure the message of believing in yourself and you can overcome any obstacle is as old as time, but Black delivers the funny in almost every scene he's in. Add to it, wonderful martial-arts action sequences and colorful, lively animation makes tis family film a winner.
*** stars out of ***