The Way I See It

Rick Santorum Doesn't Like Kids Going to College

2012-01-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

I know, I know: it's been almost a full year since i've written anything for my own blog. To be fair, I haven't written much over at Banned and Dangerous, but all of that is going to change. I'm back, and I've got some things I want to talk about in my absence. Right now, the reason why i'm back: Republican presidential candidate, Jesus freak, gay-bashing, contraception-hater Rick Santorum.

Now, you know my stance on religion: I have no problem with one's religious beliefs, but when someone tries to shove his beliefs down my throat, or impose their warped view onto the country, I take great offense to that, and i'm going to call people out. While candidate Santorum was speaking at the First Baptist Church of Naples in Florida yesterday, he had a new target in his sights for his latest Two Minutes of Hate rant: College.

"We've lost, unfortunately, our entertainment industry," the candidate explained. "We've lost our higher education. That was the first to go a long time ago. It's no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college. The indoctrination that occurs at American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America -- and it is indoctrination."

Since when is higher education equivalent to indoctrination? And isn't challenging one's beliefs, the way a person thinks and looks at the world a good thing and almost a given when you go to a university? Lastly when Rick added Hollywood into the numerous things good, noble Christ-lovin' folk have lost because of us godless liberals: how can you claim you've lost something you've never fully had control of in the first place?

"If they taught Judeo-Christian ideology, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly get. As you know, 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it. And I bet you there are people in this room who give money to colleges and universities who are undermining the very principles of our country every single day by indoctrinating kids in left-wing ideology. And you continue to give to these colleges and universities. Let me have a suggestion: Stop it!"

Rick, colleges and universities across the nation do, in fact, teach Judeo-Christian ideology, the beliefs, it's origins and the like. It's called a World Religions course. Oh, and to say that "they" would strip said school of every dollar for teaching religion is bull. First, let's get to the root of what Rick meant when he said, "they". "They," means the ACLU, the non-profit organization that's on the conservatives and evangelical Christian's shit list for, what they see as trying to eradicate Christianity from the United States. Of course, that notion is further from the truth, as the ACLU has helped Christians on numerous occasions when their right to practice their faith was threatened. Even if the government or the state tried to take away funding from said university, the ACLU would probably come to the aid of the faculty and the students.

crazy eye. crazy musical genius. crazy dancer.

2011-02-19T09:32:00.000-08:00

My second love, Radiohead, have come out with their 8th studio album, The King of Limbs, and this is their new single, "Lotus Flower". Simply awesome.

Turn out the lights, the party's over...

2011-01-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

When I was 15, as I had just begun to become politically aware, I turned to MSNBC to watch the news, and one person on the 5:00 hour every evening, from Monday to Friday: Keith Olbermann. From the nigtly, often funny, "Worst Persons In The World" segment, to the usually brilliant and powerful "Special Comment" and everything in between his nightly hour newscast, I watched, I laughed, felt outrage, and became more politically aware of my political surroundings. Tonight, Countdown with Keith Olbermann came to an end.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Good night, and good luck to you, Keith.

Battle Hymn of the TEA Party

2011-01-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

In 1861, as the American Civil War began, a writer by the name of Julia Ward Howe hears a song called "John Brown's Body", a popular marching created by Thomas Bishop of Vermont, who joined the Massachusetts Infantry one year prior to the beginning of the war. Howe hears the tune sung by the company in command of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Rufas R. Dawes. The man in command said that he had first come across the song by a man in his unit, Sgt. John Ticknor. Her companion, during her public review of the soldiers was a reverend, James Freeman Clarke, and he suggested that the lyrics in the song be changed. On the morning of November 18, 1861, Julia awakes with a blast of unexpected inspiriation, jots down the newly revised lyrics of the soldier's marching song on an old stump. One year later, in February of 1862, the lyrics are published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly. The title of that song was called "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Today it is widely considered and regarded as an American patriotic song.

Much like "John Brown's Body" was re-structured into "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as a marching song for the soldiers on the front lines, two seinor members of the TEA Party has re-worked the famous tune into a song about TEA party favorite...Sarah Palin. I am not making this up.

A tale of two speeches

2011-01-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

Last night, as the city of Tuson, Arizona, and a nation mourn the loss of half a dozen innocent civilians as a disturbed lone gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, nearly assassinated Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, there were two headlines, two speeches that, in the humble opinion of this 20 year-old blogger, voter, and citizen, speak volumes of their character as public servants.

President Obama spoke just a few hors ago on tragedy that occured at a shopping mall on the morning of January 7. Instead of rehashing what was said and what's being repeated on the cable news networks, allow me to let the words and the man speak for themselves.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There are some on the left who will say that the President should have called out the people who were throwing red meat to their base, words and rhetoric which crossed over from passionate debate to implying that the other side must be taken out, either by the ballot, or by the bullet, for they pose a grave and dangerous threat to security of our country, and to be perfectly honest, the passionate side of me would want and say that the Palins, the Becks, and the Limbaughs of the world should have to stand trial along with the crazed shooter for the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords and the senseless murder of 6 other victims. As I stated before, the nation is mourning over the loss of life, and at this time, as the President told the nation tonight, cooler heads must prevail, and our spirited debate must not blind a simple truth: that at the end of the day, we are all Americans who want only what is best for our country, so in keeping with Obama's theme of toning down the rhetoric, I won't let my spirited and heated side get the better of the me. If there's one thing that has been constant about the Obama Presidency, and what I admire, it is that the President has always called upon his supporters and his detractors to find the better angels of our nature and find ways to work together and move the debate of how we can drive the nation forward.

The same cannot be said for Sarah Palin.

Also today, the one-time Governor of Alaska and Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008 also touched on the shooting, before she exposed the real reason she took to the camera: to paint herself as a major victim of the heinous event. Again, I am going to let Mrs. Palin, and her words, speak for themselves.

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

If you're a rising star in the GOP, had put crosshairs on the districts of opponents who are up for re-election in the House, and one of those representatives was almost assassinated, what would your choices be?
A. speak briefly; say that this is a terrible tragedy and that our hearts and prayers go out of Rep. Giffords and her family, and take your lumps.
B. see A, abd also announce that although a crazed, apolitical gunmen acted alone in his deranged, twisted mind, you announce that you and everyone must tone down the rhetoric and remember that we may allign ourselves as Republicans and Democrats, we are Americans first, and foremost.
C. take to the camera and not only paint yourself as the victim, but use a term that hold deeply negative connotations against the Jewish people.

Sarah, as you can see by the video, chose C.

Mrs. Palin probably can't understand why she's taking all kinds of shit from the national media, from people on Twitter and Facebook, and Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, so as a public service, I will be the one to help her out: Sarah -- it's not just the fact you used a highly offensive term to describe how the media is going after you (a thesaurus and/or a dictionary are you friends, Sarah!), its the fact that, once again, you chose to make yourself the victim; like it was you who was most affected by the tragedy, like it was you who was neary assassinated, or that you lost someone near and dear to you becasue of the lone gunman. You acted as if it was the media who was burning you at the stake, or nailing you to a piece of wood. None of us on the left or the national media are pointing the finger at you for this tragedy (Note: anyone on the left who seriously beleives she is to blame for this is a damn fool), but the fact that your actions with the crosshairs that were chosen at Democratic incumbents who's seats were up for grabs in the Midterms, and all the red meat you've been throwing to your base, is only heading our nation for more potential grief, and if you still can't see that...then that's you're biggest problem.

The two speeches that were given last night outline two completely different personalities: one took the high road and allowed us to grieve and celebrate those who acted without thought for themselves to save others' lives, and calls on all of us to follow their example. The other showed that even in the face of tragedy, she never misses an opportunity to play politics and make the story all about her.

Really, CNN?

2011-01-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

Has it honestly been over two months since i've written anything on here? Sorry 'bout that, busy with college and whatnot. Let me make it up to you and I know you'll love this. To kick off the new year, let's file these three stories under the "WTF??" department.

The first one has to do with birds that fell dead from the sky on New Year's Eve.

Over 1,000 lifeless birds tragically fell from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year’s Eve. In an interview with AP, an expert with the state’s Livestock and Poultry Commission suggested “the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail.” The Commission offered another sad possibility, that New Year’s Eve fireworks could have gone off near the birds and startled them so severely, that they died from stress.

Here's where the story gets freaky: 100+ miles from Beebe, Arkansas, over 100,000 fish wash up off the Arkansas river...also dead.

An Arkansas Game and Fish Commission spokesman says dead drum fish now cover a 20-mile section of the Arkansas River near Ozark.

Seven teams from the state agency visited the affected portion of the river Friday. Commission spokesman Keith Stephens says an official estimate of how many fish have died is expected on Monday, but he tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the number is likely in the hundreds of thousands.

The commission determined the fish died in the river from a dam near Ozark to a bridge along State Highway 109 near Clarksville.

Many people believe that this is all just coincidence, and it probably is. But some have taken to Twitter and other social networking sites and see the dead fish washing ashore and the lifeless birds falling from the sky as sign of the coming End Times, or Armageddon. So, naturally, the good people at CNN needed to bring on someone who could reassure that these incidents have nothing whatsoever to do with the End Times...They brought on Kirk Cameron. No, i'm not kidding. They actually brought on Kirk Cameron.

Why Kirk Cameron, you ask? You see, Kirk turned away from drug addiction during the success of the hit TV sitcom Growing Pains and became a born-again Evangelical Christian, and recently he has been working tirelessly to disprove the theory of Evolution, so the suits at CNN thought they would get him on and either one of two tings would happen: he would call B.S. on these supposed "signs", or go completely batshit crazy, demand that Anderson Cooper repent for his sinful lifestyle as a homosexual man, and plead with his viewers to turn to the grace of the Almighty before time runs out. Kirk Cameron wasn't biting.

The fact that CNN would even bring on the star of a famous TV show the explain why these incidents occurred - as supposed to someone who works with animals - is jaw-dropingly stupid in of itself. I would half expect Fox News to pull off this kind of stunt, but not this news network.

Week Five Thoguths from the NFL

2010-10-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the long delay, folks: school, as you ywould think, is taking up the majority of my time, thus the lack of posts last month, and probably this month as well. I've stated a new column at B&D called Thoughts From the NFL. every Tuesday, i'm going to give my analysis from the biggest games from around the NFL, the playmakers, and the stories that are making waves in professional football. Weeks one, two and four are already up, so let me start it off with thoughts from Week Five.

* I don't know what to say, or where to start with the Chargers. This is the fourth consecutive time San Diego has started 2-3 under Norv Turner. What fustrates me as a fan is that 3 of the 5 losses came agains shit-kicker teams like the Chiefs, Seahawks, and now the Raiders. Our Special Teams unit is a mess, as they've made guys like Leon Washington (Seattle) and Dexter McCluster (Kansas City) look like the next Devon Hester and Darren Sproles by comparison. Next week is a revived St. Louis team, and their star rookie QB, Sam Bradford, again on the road. I haven't been a staunch defender of Turner, but if his team loses next Sunday, and the Bolts miss the playoffs, I can honestly say that no fan will want to go to a Charger game until Norv is removed from his post.

* If there's one thing that infuritates me more than the Chargers handing a win to Raiders, its how far the Dallas Cowboys have fallen this year. It's not just the that excessive celebration penalty that Jason Whitten got flaggged for wich cost the team yards on their kickoff in the 4th quarter, it's how badly the D played agianst Vince Young. It's the stupid and penalty-killing drives that Tony Romo's been producing. (the holding call with 03 seconds left in the season opener vs. Washington and yesterday's fiasco.) It's been costly turnovers. The talk coming out of Dallas was that this was a Super Bowl Contender, that Jerry Jones's team would be the first in NFL history to host the big game in their house. They're far from it, and, like the Chargers, they need to quickly find themselves.

* We're five weeks into the season, and they're isn't a clear favorite. Teams like Dallas, San Diego, Indy, and New Orleans are all struggling and/or dealing with injuries. Minnesota is 1-3, even with Randy Moss back with the Vikings. Kansas City is a surprising 3-1, but they have a young Secondary and an average QB that will come back to earth late in the season. The Texans, at 3-2, are the real deal but I don't see them beating the Colts twice. You could make the case that the Steelers are probably the favorites, based on a healthy Troy Polamalu and the return of Big Ben after serving a 4 game suspsension, or on the Jets, with the stellar defense, and continuing growth of Mark Sanchez. There's just hasn't been a big game where you can clearly see a favorite.

* Speaking of the Vikings, after the Jets win over the Vikings 29-20 last night, is it fair to say that Minnesota's dead, and that Farve should have stayed on his farm in Missisippi, doing whatever it is Brett does in his spare time (other than sending pics of his "junk" to women in the locker room)?

Tea Party = GOP (Now with 2x the crazy!)

2010-09-22T10:46:00.001-07:00

First there was Sarah Palin. The architect of downright dipshit candidates that the Tea Party now promote. We all remember her list of maladies: she didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was, she couldn't tell you what newspapers she liked to read, winks numerous times in a vice-presidential debate, she supported hunting wolves from an airplane, she used to ban books while mayor of Wasilla, and once received protection against witchcraft from a witch doctor.

Then there was Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate that won her Republican Primary and is now locked in a fierce race in Nevada to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Her claim to fame? She used to be apart of Nevada's Independent Party back in the 90's. The party she supported through the 90's (up until she left in 1997) were strongly homophobic.

Next came Rand Paul, the son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Ron Paul is one of the few Republicans in politics I have respect for. His son, on the other hand, is a real piece of work. We all remember Paul Jr. being interview by Rachel Maddown and how he would tackle the Civil Rights Act of 1964...or his lack of action. Dr. Paul stated that he believes that institutionalized racism is wrong and abhorent, but it's not the place of the federal government to demand that private businesses sy that they cannot discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orentation, and disability. Nevermind that private and public ownership of busses, diners, and other areas that blacks were discriminated against played a huge part in why Dr. King marched on Washington D.C. on August 22, 1963, or why African-Americans in Montgomery, Alabama boycottted public transportiation.

And now we have Christine O' Donnell, the Republican nominee from Delaware. Of all the things i've listed about the batshit candidates, she takes the cake. Not only is she another overzealous Jesus freak and a Palin-clone(i.e. the good ol', plain-speaking girl next door routine, looks and speaks just like your mother or family elder), she also believes that masturbation is a sin against the Almighty himself.

“The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can’t masturbate without lust. The reason that you don’t tell [people] that masturbation is the answer to AIDS and all these other problems that come with sex outside of marriage is because again it is not addressing the issue. You’re just gonna create somebody who is, I was gonna say, toying with his sexuality. Pardon the pun.”

No words can describe just how ridiculous that statement is. Did I also forget to mention that she used to "dabble in witchcraft?"

These are the members of the Tea Party, the group ~~not created from Dick Armney's "Freedom Works" think-tank and from irrational fears that the President is a black radical hell-bent on taking away the white man's guns, and his daughter's virginity~~ founded on freedom, on reducing the size of government, on getting a foothold of the out-of-control deficit, on shouting from Arizona to the footsteps of Capitol Hill, "Read our lips: No new ta..." Wait a minute...these guys sound like what former Republican Presidents have been spouting off for the last 20 years!

The Tea Party is really nothing new = it's the GOP, but in a shiny new wrapper, only now they come with frothing-at-the-mouth racial insensitivity towards gays, blacks, and latinos! The sad part in all of this is that the Republicans foolishly thoguth they would be able to control these people...now in this election cycle, the puppetmaster has become the puppet, and if Obama and the Democrats can't get their act together and sell the slow progress they have been legislating, the last 8 years of the Bush Administration wouldn't look so bad after a few rounds with these reactionary lunatics.

The Ones That Mattered: The 10 Best Movies of the Last Decade

2010-09-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

Sure, this comes month late, but I want to honor the best 10 movies that came from the previous decade; the ones that stayed with me, even today. These are the best of what film making offered us, the ones that mattered.

1. There Will Be Blood - The first 15 minutes of this explosive and chilling meditation on family, faith, and greed, we see Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis in a performance for the ages) risking life and limb for silver in a mine shaft out in the West. He finds what his heart seeks, but not before busting his leg, leaving him a limp for life. As the saying goes, "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger," and in Plainview's case, it only intensifies his lust for power, and the depths he is prepared to go to achieve his ends. His need for power is matched buy three obstacles: his 10 year-old adopted son, H.W. (an excellent Dillon Freasier), a charismatic, fundamentalist preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano matching beat for beat with Day-Lewis), and his own hatred of humanity. In the film's breathtaking and bold 30 minutes, he has his vengeance on all three. Anderson, with his uncompromising vision of America at the turn of the century, has crafted a modern epic that meditates on the dark side of strike-it-rich capitalists, or - if you want to extend the metaphor - the true face of it.

2. Spirited Away - Even the wizards at Pixar Animation Studios call director-writer Hayao Miayzaki the true master of animation. One look at his visually stunning and bittersweet tale of growing up, masked in an re-telling of Alice In Wonderland, will have you in agreement. Of all the animated movies to come around, Spirited Away is the one that stuck with me most, and made me truly fall in love with the power of film-making. 9 year-old Chirio becomes trapped in the spirit world after her parents take a detour en route to their new home, and turn into pigs after mom and dad obliviously eat from the food of the spirits. Her only hope of returning home and rescuing her parents is to do hard labor for Yubaba, the owner of the bathhouse for the weary spirits. The use of hand-drawn animation (with splashes of computer animation thrown in) and composer Joe Hisashi's luscious and haunting score are mated in a graceful and beautiful waltz, each serving to flawless storytelling and Miayzaki's world of pure imagination.

3. Babel - Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu shot this ensemble drama in various locations across the globe: from the deserts of Morocco, to the San Diego-Tijuana border, to the metropolis of neon that is Tokyo, Japan; in five different languages (including sign language); all covered in a the modern-day age of social networking and terrorism, to showcase humanity's failure to communicate with one another. Explaining the plot and the characters are too complex and complicated to explain, and that's what Inarritu is going for: he wants the audience to look past the story and begin to listen to what's going on underneath the surface. Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchette, and Adriana Barraza are all top-notch, but the film's grieving heart is centered in Rinko Kikuichi, a deaf Japanese teenager who uses sex to bury the pain of losing her mother who committed suicide. Watching her, naked on the balcony of her house was she stares down the busy neon lights of the city, is quietly devastating.

4. Children Of Men - Alfonso Cuaron's sequence in the car where Theo (a career-best by Clive Owen), a disillusioned theocrat helps smuggle a young African refugee (Claire-Hope Ashiety) out of the decaying United Kingdom with help from his separated wife, Julia (the great Julianne Moore), only to be ambushed by an angry mob, is a breathtaking sequence, which sets the tone for this bleak and hopeful dystopian sci-fi thriller that seems a little too close to the present day: its 2027, women have been infertile for almost 18 years, and almost all of civilization across the world has fallen into chaos. It's a hopeless future, with different clashes of ethnic, religious, and political groups fight for what's left of a crumbling world, and Cuaron works miracles to shine a dim light on a future that's lost all hope to save themselves.

5. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - If it's cheating that i'm combining The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, then so be it. Yes, they are three separate movies, but if you add all three masterpieces together, you have one 9 1/2 hour story that redefines what an epic can - and should - be. Credit director/co-producer and screenwriter Peter Jackson for bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels vividly to life, combining explosive and visually arresting storytelling and textbook themes of paralleled bravery, unimaginable sacrifice, and the deepest bonds of friendship and compassion in the face of an unspeakable evil in the dark lord Sauron, attempting to capture the One Ring and, with it, destroy the world of Middle-Earth, and actors Elija Wood as Frodo Baggins, Sean Astin as Samwise Gamtree, Frodo's loyal companion, Viggo Mortenson and Aragorn, the heir to the King of Gondor, and Sir Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf.

6. The Departed - Sure, the action isn't in the mean streets of New York City, but Martin Scorsese still brilliantly uses crime, corruption and social decay as a torch way to the soul. His viceral tale of crime and consequences is a remake from the Hong Kong masterpiece Infernal Affairs, this time set in Boston. Collin Sullivan is a rat implanted in the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) unit to keep Irish mob boss, Frank Costello (a wicked and electrifying Jack Nickelson) from being turned in to Capt. Queenan (the always reliable Martin Sheen) and Staff Sgt. Dignam (an excellent Mark Walberg). Meanwhile, rookie cop Billy Costigan (the ever-brilliant Leonardo DiCaprio) is picked by Queenan and Dignam to act as a mole in order to gain Costello's trust and take him down. How the rest of this thrilling crime drama shakes down, I won't reveal. But it's what Scorsese brings out in DiCaprio and Damon's characters - two men struggling to out the other without compromising their identities, and wrestle with their own dilemmas; Sullivan wants to break free from Frank and start a new life with Madoyln (Vera Farminga); Billy wants out of his mission of trying to nail Costello after a year of doing his dirty work - that makes The Departed unforgettable and unmissable.

7. The Incredibles - Pixar is to animation, as Radiohead is to rock music - neither group can do wrong. For me, Brad Bird's take on a family of supers forced into seclusion because the U.S. Government couldn't keep paying for the damages they've created as a result of their heroics is my favorite of the decade from this extraordinary company. It's a mix of James Bond, X-Men and Indiana Jones all rolled into one, but it's Bird's first-half, his satire on suburbia and the struggles of marriage after 15 years, that really resonates.

8. Mystic River - Clint Eastwood's haunting and hypnotic murder mystery is as powerful and as compelling as any other work he's done this decade. Sean Penn breathes fire and menace as Jimmy, the father who's daughter was murdered and now turns on his childhood friend Dave (a wonderful and tragic Tim Robbins), the prime suspect in the case, as Sean (Kevin Bacon) tries to search for the truth before Jimmy takes matters into his own hands.

9. Almost Famous - I've seen many coming-of-age comedies that have made me laugh and sympathize with the gangly, awkward protagonists, but writer-director Cameron Crowe's story of William Miller, a 15 year-old getting the chance of a lifetime as he travels with his idol rock group across America and writing for Rolling Stone magazine about Stillwater, stole my heart, and then broke it so the audience can feel as if we are William himself. Billy Crudup as the asshole lead guitarist for Stillwater, Kate Hudson as the legendary Band-Aid Penny Lane, and Frances McDormand as young William's overprotective mother all give fine performances, but it's Patric Fugit as William that shines in this love letter to rock 'n' roll of the 60s and 70s.

10 (tie). Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Dark Knight - Simply put, both Christopher Nolan's and Alfonso Cuaron's works have pulled off an amazing feat: they both combine spectacular entertainment without compromising their visions of our favorite worlds, and both directors have made their sequels complete standouts from their original predecessors.

New Title. Same Jonathan.

2010-09-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

I've decided to Scrap Jonathan's Corner.

Wait, that didn't come out right. Let's try again:

I've decided to scrap the name of the blog, Jonathan's Corner, to The Way I See It. I figured that it was time for a change, so what the hell? Change the name and she where it goes from here.

As for the lack of posts? School (and procrastination) are taking up most of my time, but I will try to write as much as I can on here and on Banned and Dangerous, so this is just a head's up, and to let ya'll know i'm not dead or have disappeared somewhere. There's so much I want to get through, like the end of the Summer Movie Season (A few gems in a lackluster, and bland, showing this time), or the story of some kook who wants to remember 9/11...by burning the Koran, a September to remember in the National League, the beginning of the football season, and the crucial 2010 Midterms that will decide if the Democrats will keep the majority in the House and Senate. I'll be hitting these topics within the coming days and weeks.

War Is Over!

2010-08-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

By now, you've seen the video footage of the last of U.S. ground troops leaving Iraq, thus ending Operation: Iraqi Freedom. 50,000 U.S. forces will stay to train the Iraqi army, and provide security for the country for the time being. Most of you who have read my blogs, both at Jonathan's Corner and on B&D, know my stance on the Iraq war, so I won't continue to beat a dead horse. Instead, let me take this time and this space to thank the men and women who served with the up most honor and distinction during tour after tour. These brave souls answered the call when their country called on them to serve, and did their job to the best of their ability. For that, they have my, and a nation's, eternal thanks for doing what they did.

Ballad of a Young Man

2010-08-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

I owe this latest piece to the film Into The Wild, about the true story of a young man who abandons his wealthy lifestyle to find true freedom in the wilderness of Alaska. The story, the breathtaking scenery, and the music moved me to write this poem about leaving innocence behind and making your own way through life and it's treacherous obstacles.

As the celebration of adolescence past
Has all but ended
The Young Man found himself more afraid
Than he originally thought
Or even intended.

This new road laid out before him
The many paths he can take
All have their consequences and shortfalls
Readily, anticipating when the Young Man
Will surly make his grave mistake.

His heart pines for the better days
When the Young Man was just a Boy
When fears didn't weigh down on young shoulders
When dreams stretched out for infinity
Like the Young Man's favorite expandable toy.

There is no going back
The door has already been closed
For there is a new journey which awaits him
A new adventure to parttake
A whole new world waiting to be vastly explored.

The time has come, Young Man
To start down this winding road
On your own
Time to find yourself
As all of us have done before.

There is a God!

2010-08-15T23:39:00.000-07:00

So I thought this was awesome.

99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999% out of 100 I don't condone or like it when someone acts like a jerk towards a celeb, no matter how much of an annoying douche he or she is, but this Bieber kid is just so damn f'ing annoying (songs and all, sorry infected Bieber heads) that it's nice to see this brat get taken down a peg.

The Fundamental Problem Between Democrats and Republicans

2010-08-05T12:23:00.001-07:00

Of all the things Dems and the GOP could endlessly argue and debate, I would at least think that the rescue workers - many of whom have suffered damage of their organs, have developed breathing problems, or other medical-type issues - that sacrificed their lives to save others trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center....something like giving them free healthcare and compensation for their tireless efforts would be a no-brainer, everyone in the freaking House of Representatives would unanimously support.

The bill came to the floor, was debated for weeks, and the final tally was in: yeas - 255, nays - 159. Did I mention that the bill, despite it's clear majority, didn't pass? Yes, you read that right: it had a clear majority in the House, and it didn't pass. And, oh yeah - and i'm sure this will shock every last one of you - most of the 159 representatives who voted no were.....drum-roll, please.....Republicans. So what was the argument behind voting no, you ask?

GOP critics branded the bill as yet another big-government "massive new entitlement program" that would have increased taxes and possibly kill jobs.

To pay the bill's estimated $7.4 billion cost over 10 years, the legislation would have prevented foreign multinational corporations incorporated in tax haven countries from avoiding tax on income earned in the U.S.

Bill supporters said that would close a tax loophole. Republicans branded it a corporate tax increase.

Pardon my French, but ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?!?! These are the men and women who put their own lives on the line for their fellow man, and this is how you choose to repay them!? By giving them the proverbial finger while you, once again, defend the interests of Corporate America!? What the hell is wrong you?? At what point did outright greed trump helping those who have given back and are suffering from respiratory problems and whatnot?

And the Democrats....I can't even begin to explain what I think of these guys....

King said Democrats were "petrified" about casting votes as the fall elections near on controversial amendments, possibly including one that could ban the bill from covering illegal immigrants who were sickened by trade center dust.

When will you guys stop acting like a bunch of petrified pussies, and start standing up to these corporate thugs? You have the Majority and yet, you're letting the Minority run the show???

Great. Republicans keep sucking that big business cock, while Democrats refuse to fight back against Republican opposition. The result is that the 9/11 first responders don't receive the treatment and the benefits they so rightly deserve, which, inherently, outlines the fundamental problem with our two parties in this day and age: Democrats are like the Lion in The Wizard of Oz, desperately searching for some courage, while the Republicans have morphed into Daniel Day-Lewis's character in There Will Be Blood: a greed-filled misanthrope who has longed forgotten to call the human race his own.

Hom Sweet Home

2010-08-02T16:31:00.001-07:00

This is the first poem i've written in quite sometime, and it touches on my fear of total isolation when I grow older: that feeling of regrets, wrong paths taken, and feeling stuck in a place that offers no escape. My influences come from The Seatbelt's brilliant ending theme to the show Cowboy Bebop called "The Real Folk Blues", The Shins' "A Comet Appears", Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" and "No Suprises", The Beatles' "Within You Without You", and Dixie Chicks' "A Home". I hope you enjoy.

The man opens the door
dragging his weary feet across
the living room floor
to a house that doesn’t feel
like a home.

The nine-to-five shift
he labors is done
his check’s in the mail
but there’s no satisfaction
no sense of achievement
that his Inner can hail
it’s nothing but a drug
another pill for him to take
to make his Outer happy
it’s there for his dead body
feeling comfortably numb.

He looks into the mirror
vague traces of regret
misery and lost causes
staring back at him
talking without speaking to him
how his future is all but set.

The deafening silence
of his house that’s not his home
slowly kills him
like searing pains of acts of violence
no wife to kiss and hold
no baby to run around and rome
are just as effective
as a gun, or a knife
once these longing feelings take hold.

He lays on his couch
the lights have gone out
nonsensical noise filling the air
of his television set
about he said/she said
and a can’t miss sale
all trying to slay
the empty silence about.

A single tear falls from his face
as he lays down his head
wishing for a way
to escape this isolating place
in a house that’s not a home
a place where there’s love instead.

Restraining order!

2010-07-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Probably the creepiest, most disturbing piece of fan-mail i've ever encountered for a celebrity.

Who hasn't gotten through the whole thing not think, restraining order for this weirdo?
And while we're on the subject on sick, perverted people, how does a 40+ year old adult, who is a registered sex offender, nab a job as an ice cream truck driver?

The Palin Foreign Policy Manifesto Or: Why We Should Vote Obama in 2012

2010-07-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

My friend Kerri Greene and I were talking about positive and negative energy in the Universe and how she does her best to throw out positive vibes rather than negative. For the most part, I'm trying to follow her lead:

* Guys like Sean Hannity and Mike Galllagher, and Bill O'Reilly who I hated with passion; now, whenever I see those clown on TV, I just change the channel. It's just not worth the energy to yell when I already know their shtick is to appeal to the lowest common denominator and exploit the viewer's negative-held beliefs on anyone and anything that maybe different that them or how they think, or look, etc.

* The Los Angles Dodgers, our rivals in the National League West are just that: our bitter rivals in a hotly contested divisional race. I'll be disappointed if the Padres don't win the West and L.A. does, but I won't lose sleep over it.

* Not being the jock or the cool kid who got the super-cute girls in high school, adding my insecure nature and struggle to be just like I am, drove my depression in my Junior and Senior years, and i'm now beginning to realize that all of that shit doesn't matter, that traits like that don't really help in the real world (unless you're an athlete who's banging a underwear model or a porn star, then you suck even more!)

Sarah Palin, though? I have to give her credit: when she spouted her foreign policy, "Peace Through Bombing the Shit Out of Anyone Who Fucks with Us" agenda, she set off a nerve in me. Here's some of her bullet-points:

On Defense Spending:

Now don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong with preaching fiscal conservatism. I want the federal government to balance its budget right now! And not the Washington way – which is raising your taxes to pay for their irresponsible spending habits. I want it done the American way: by cutting spending, reducing the size of government, and letting people keep more of their hard-earned cash.

This administration may be willing to cut defense spending, but it’s increasing it everywhere else. I think we should do it the other way round: cut spending in other departments – apart from defense. We should not be cutting corners on our national security.

First off Sarah: the Obama administration is actually doing what you propose, by way of a spending freeze starting in 2011, where just about everything but defense is cut.
Second: We did reduce spending the "American" way. It was in the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush Jr. years, and now we're in the "Great Recession" because of the policy that Big Business and Corporate America can be trusted to regulate itself, when in fact, they can't.
Furthermore, what's the point of our military might if citizens at home are falling through the various cracks? How we claim to defend the interests of America and her allies abroad, if we're behind the ball on universal health care for all citizens, or clean energy jobs?

On the War on Terror:

When George W. Bush came into office, he inherited a military that had been cut deeply, an al Qaeda that had been unchallenged, and an approach to terrorism that focused on bringing court cases rather than destroying those who sought to destroy us. We saw the result of some of that on 9/11.

And who, pray-tell, was in charge of the country, months before the devastating attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center? Who was handed a memo that read "Bin Laden Determined To Strike U.S.", one month before 9/11, and still did nothing!?

When President Obama came into office, he inherited a military that was winning in Iraq. He inherited loyal allies and strong alliances...their basic foreign policy outlines should have been clear. Commit to the War on Terror...Promote liberty, not least because it enhances our security.

If you mean "winning" by bribing the Sunnis and the Shi'ite not to kill American ground forces, then i'll gladly give you that one, but let's not kid ourselves on the former president and allies and alliances. Our only major partner in this nightmare was Great Britain, as the rest of the world opted-out of joining W. down a quagmire of epic proportions not seen since Vietnam. Oh, and Obama is still committed to the War on Terrorism: we're escalated troop levels in Afghanistan, and the use of drones is becoming a big factor in our approach to taking out terrorist leaders.

On Dealing with Less-Than Likable Leaders and Nations:

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration reaches out to some of the world’s worst regimes. They shake hands with dictators like Hugo Chavez, send letters to the Iranian mullahs and envoys to North Korea, ease sanctions on Cuba and talk about doing the same with Burma. That’s when they’re not on one of their worldwide apology tours.

Or, what normal, sane leaders would call, diplomacy. Before the Republican Party abandoned rationality and reason for quick, knee-jerk action in the international arena, President Nixon actually used it to cool off tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. You see, Sarah: even Nixon, paranoid crook that he was, understood that the continued arms race between the two nations would lead to the tipping point that neither side would be able to contain, so he introduced the SALT I and SALT II treaties to reduce the no. of stockpiles of weapons both sides would build to avoid plunging the world into a nuclear holocaust. Hell, now Nixon would've been considered a "pussy" by arrogant, trigger-happy morons in this day and age because he favored avoiding war.

On Obama's "Differing Views of America"

When asked whether he believed in American exceptionalism, President Obama answered, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Amazing. Amazing.

I think this statement speaks volumes about his world view. He sees nothing unique in the American experience?

Bullshit, Sarah. On the campaign trail, then-Senator Obama stated many times how his story and his rise on the national stage wouldn't have happened anywhere else but in America. Oh, and when you have a white mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, and when you travel beyond the borders of the United States for a good portion of your life, you tend to see the world and your country in different-colored lenses, which is well-needed clarity for this country.

At this point, anyone who's read her policy carefully, pretty much understands what the former Governor of Alaska is about: she's a Bush Jr. clone who prides herself on not-knowing jack. She doesn't know and understand complex foreign policy issues, and frankly, she doesn't want to know. To her, if the discussion doesn't include "U.S.," "America," "United States," "Americans," "U.S.A." or some combination of the words, then she doesn't give a damn. To her, its our way or its gonna rain bombs over your neck of the wood, diplomacy be damned; plus only pussies try to "reason" and "negotiate," because might always makes right. Sarah Palin and the new trigger-happy members of the Republican Party are the textbook example of Jim Rome's take on "Likes to Fight Guy", but on an international stage.

Going back to Kerri and throwing out positive energy in the Universe, I was about ready to write a short post, and just blast her away, as i've done in some posts in the past. As I read her piece, I had a change of heart: like getting worked up about the right-wing clowns, and the Dodgers, and what i'm not when I attended Otay Ranch High School, it's not worth the energy. Plus, its more therapeutic for me to write out lengthy pieces on, as disheartening many liberals and progressives are with the change (or lack thereof in the eyes of some) President Obama is administrating, that the other alternative the GOP is proudly suggesting, is a no-brainier: we'll stick to fighting for the change he promised on the campaign trail than resort to cynicism and apathy, allowing their brand of insanity to return to the White House.

Ramblings on a Saturday night

2010-07-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, I make a quick run across the street to Vons off on Canyon Plaza. As I'm putting my items on the conveyor belt, I scan the pop trash mags next to the M&M's and Trident gum packs.

One mag headline had the star of The Bachelorete, talking about how much of a jerk the winner and "lover" (allegedly) Jake was towards her once the cameras stopped rolling. I guess someone forget to tell her that actually falling in love with the "winner" is a no-no. I mean, the big-wigs at ABC have to keep the reality series going with the likable jilted lovers looking for happiness, and the stuck-up fame whores looking to keep their faces on E! News every night.

Another mag had one of the stars of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse on the cover, and when I read the captions Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson, I almost immediately looked to the next mag on the stand. I'm sure Lautner is a pretty cool dude, and i've seen some interviews of him on late-night TV where he comes off as a charming guy, but I can't wait until this whole Twilight-fad joins Pokemon, Hannah Montana, boy bands, and Heidi and Spencer in the trash bin of pop culture history. I've had enough about hearing endless debates between Team Edward and Team Jacob and whether or not Pattinson and his co-star, Kristen Stewart are dating.

The last magazine I skimmed over is something I still can't fully comprehend: a magazine devoted to Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber. From which celebrities find him adorable, to his secret tattoo, to his clothing style, it covered just about every aspect you could think of on the kid. And then there was this section I found honestly pathetic: how your boyfriend can look like Justin......page 72. Am I the only person who finds that disturbing? Why would you want your boyfriend to look like male jailbait?

More to the point: why do we, as a society, place so much emphasis on popularity, on who's "in" or what's "out"? Allow to steal a quote from the Denver-based folk/alternative band DeVotcKa: "If you win the rat race, if you come in first place / Then a rat is all you will be." If we're this shallow and vapid, that we have to look a certain way to impress groups of people, or believe that if we just do this we'll feel accepted amongst the sea of same, then we're only lying and deceiving ourselves, and effectively, slowly destroying our individuality for the sake of vanity.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the trailer

2010-06-30T16:15:00.001-07:00

Warner Bros. leaked the trailer online so the rest of us wouldn't have to sneak into The Twilight Saga: Eclipse to watch it. I love the Internet.

Part I comes out November 19, and Part II will be released July 15, 2011.

On Fandom and Twilight

2010-06-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

A woman's marriage nearly ends in divorce because she became obsessed with Twilight.

"I found poems my husband had written in his journal about how I had fallen for a 'golden-eyed vampire,' " says Johnson, a 31-year-old accountant from Mesa, Ariz., who became so enthralled by the blockbuster series of young adult novels and movies that she found herself staying up all night, re-reading juicy chapters and chatting about casting news and the are-they-or-aren't-they romance between the stars of the films, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.

" 'Twilight' was always on my mind, to the point where I couldn't function," Johnson says.

At what point in your life does an obsession to a movie series, or a book saga, begin to completely grab hold of your entire life? Especially to a shitty, piss-poor excuse for a vampire-werewolf romantic drama like Twilight? I know we're facing rough times as a country, but is your life really that boring if you're going on a binge for everything that's related to R-Patz, K-Stew and T-Lat? Was the hubby not giving you the attention or love you needed in that marriage that you had to dive into a awful book about a shallow, clingy woman, her jerk of vampire boyfriend, and her friendship with a pussy-whipped werewolf that slowly reaches stalker status thought the course of the novels? Star Wars dorks think that losing yourself in the Twilight-craze is weak.

Look, I can proudly say that i'm a nerd for the Harry Potter saga. I love the books, and when I have kids, some of the first books i'm going to steer them toward is the epic tale of The Boy Who Lived. I've been to midnight showings for Goblet of Fire and Half-Blood Prince and will for The Deathly Hallows Parts I & II. I'm not obsessed with the franchise to the point where I spend hours a day, hitting up the online message boards, discussing the books, and talking about the movies. I'm not going to stand in line for 5+ hours to watch a Harry Potter movie, unless the theater management strongly suggests that I arrive an hour and a half in advance because there will be a long line of people waiting to see it. The bottom line: I'm a dork for the movies and books, but I keep my dork in check -- I don't let the series, as brilliant as it is, get the better of me.

Greed Over Principles or: the G.O.P.'s attitude toward Americans

2010-06-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Remember John McCain's slogan he used back in 2008, Country First? Remember how all of the GOP talking heads repeated how that, under a McCain-Palin administration, he was going to put "Country First"? When all Senate Republicans and one conservative Democrat stood together to block a jobs bill that would have reinstated many financial aid programs, including unemployment benefits to those currently out of work and/or looking for a job, is this what they had in mind when it comes to "Country First"?

Reid and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), in an effort to mollify a handful of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans, have spent the past several weeks trimming the bill to reduce its deficit impact. But after jettisoning several provisions to help the old, the poor and the jobless, reducing the bill's ten-year deficit impact down from $134 billion to just $33 billion, the bill is still sinking. Not a single Republican is willing to lend support and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson is still holding out, leaving Democrats two votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Extended unemployment benefits lapsed at the beginning of June. By Friday, more than 1.2 million people out of work for longer than six months will have found themselves ineligible for the next tier of extended benefits, which were originally provided by the stimulus bill to fight the recession. Other programs that lapsed include elevated federal aid for state Medicaid programs and a "Doc Fix" that prevents doctors from a 21-percent drop in reimbursement for seeing Medicare patients.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a statement put out today said the reason the Republicans in the Senate blocked this important piece of legislation for millions of Americans is because they're worried about what this will do to the deficit.

That's complete bullshit!

If these so-called "fiscal conservatives" were so concerned about the deficit, then why did the GOP rubber stamp Bush Jr.'s tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans and to big business? If the Republicans were that concerned about bringing some fiscal discipline, then they wouldn't have allowed Reagan to balloon defense spending from $134 billion to $290 billion within the 8-year tenure of his presidency, or hold firm on Bush and the neoconservatives' push to drag America into an unnecessary war with Iraq. Now these self-righteous pricks have the stones to tell us that now they're worried about the national deficit they helped create over the last eight years, only after they were bounced out of power!?

Let's cut the fucking bullshit and get to the real reason the Senate Republicans are giving the proverbial middle finger to Americans who are desperately trying to find work: they've made the cynical bet that the only way they'll get back into power is to block, de-rail, and oppose every scrap of legislation the Democrats and President Obama try to push through in order to help middle-class Americans. They don't care if America has to face another near-economic crass, or if kids on the streets of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have been reduced to begging for food because the parents can't afford a damn meal, let 'em starve; hungry kids are not they're problem. To the GOP, the ends will always justify their means.

So, I revert to my original question: back in 2008, when McCain's slogan was "Country First", and all the right-wing talking heads said that under a McCain-Palin administration the pair would put "Country First"...did they mean this one? Because they've got a funny way of showing it.

Hermit Crab

2010-06-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

A typical weekend for me goes something like this:

Friday: Catching up on the news of the day or day before that on MSNBC, CNN and online with the Huffington Post.
Doing some cleaning around the house - maybe some laundry, often washing dirty dishes, constantly cleaning off the counter in the kitchen, folding up the blankets in the living room, and replacing the piddle pads on the walkway to the door.
Occasionally some reading - either the local newspaper or a book i'm re-reading.
Studying for the next class or completing a homework assignment.
Catch a movie with mom if she feels like it.

Saturday: Watch television.
Go online.
Continue studying for classes and/or completing homework assignment.
Do late brunch with mom and dad at the Broken Yolk Cafe.
Listen to my music on iTunes or on You Tube.
Watch one of the dozens of movies I have on DVD.

Sunday: Sleep in until 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning.
stock up on groceries at the commissary either in Imperial Beach, or all the way out to North Island in Coronado.
Make dinner for the family.
Maybe we see another movie. Maybe.
Listen to my music, again.
And if the laundry hasn't been done, then I'll do the first load.

That is my weekend in a nutshell. And the next weekend. And the next. You get the picture. Its practically what I do. There is the occasional time where i'm carried off to a barbecue thing with Mrs. Laura, a friend of mom's, but mostly every visit is an awkward affair where I don't really feel all that comfortable in. Even when I'm with mom at the salon, I really don't say much to my own stylist (yes, I have a stylist who cuts my hair, bite me!) who likes the both mom and I friends. Everytime i'm in a social setting, I feel totally awkward: I'm stiff, I don't really talk much, I try to find some place to be alone and wonder why the fuck I can't converse...It's like i'm not myself whenever this happens.

Factor in my struggles with self confidence and shyness, and you have a rarity in a young person: someone who prefers the quiet, familiar confides of being at home, than going out and being social with friends. Adding insult to injury, sometimes being at home is the loneliest, worst place to be. I'm stuck in my own private purgatory, and it's one I often think I won't be able to handle or get over anytime soon.

I'm changing my scene

2010-06-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

I thought it was time for a new layout; something that suits to my liking...which just happens to be reading. This is what I wish my bookshelf could look like. Enjoy the new layout, and tell me what you think of it.

My generation sucks

2010-06-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

That there
That's not me

I go
Where I please
Radiohead, "How To Disappear Completely"

People keep telling me that every generation had its share of pop culture bullshit. But how can they explain the nonsense that's been going on the last few years: Taylor Swift winning Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammys after Kanye West couldn't keep his big-ass ego in check for one night. A mediocre series of novels is hailed by millions of their fans as the heirs to the brilliance of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga, then become blockbuster movies that appeal to fickle-headed teenage girls who want their dream boyfriends to be sparkly (quite literary), Prince Harry-like handsome, and share sentiments that their life sucks (even though their higher middle-class and come to school decked out in Abercrombie & Fitch gear). Musical heroes aren't what they used to be: we had pioneers like Kurt Corbain, Tupac, Michael Jackson, to name a few, who we idolized, almost religiously, but now heroes consist of manufactured pop schlock like Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Bros., and Justin Bieber. And every generation had its share of fame-seeking, attention whores looking for their 15 minutes, but if they could see what Perez Hilton, Heidi Montag and Paris Hilton will do to keep their names in the tabloids, even they would agree that those freaks are going too far. In my generation, apparently, good taste is hard to come by.

Why I'm an Agnostic

2010-06-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

"I think Jesus is the product," says televangelist T.D. Jakes. In that short sentence alone, this fraud has told me what he honestly thinks about Christianity, more than what any sermon he pulls out of his fat, black ass.

Proud to be Seditious, Mark?

2010-05-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

Dictonary.com defines sedition, as the following:

se·di·tion
–noun
1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.
2. any action, esp. in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.
3. Archaic . rebellious disorder.

The U.S. Constitution also talks about what constitutes as an act of sedition:

SECT. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either House of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States; or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the Constitution of the United States; or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act; or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

It is one thing to be completely ignorant about something.
It is another thing entirely to be completely ignorant about something, but still speak like you know what you are talking about.
Mark Noonan's latest screed throws him in the latter category.

After all, we were born of rebels:

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, speaking at a law school forum, said that GOP opposition to the Obama program “is almost at the level of sedition.”

Patrick later said the phrase was a mere “rhetorical flourish,” but this isn’t the first — or the fifth — time a prominent liberal politico has accused conservatives of approaching sedition in opposing Obama administration policies. See, the “almost” part is key, because then it isn’t offensive, right?

And the thing is, we’re not like the liberals who call themselves rebellious. No, not like that at all – liberals are slaves who, doing their master’s bidding, think they a “speaking truth to power” or whatever catch phrase of the day it is. We, on our side, are like this:

Words like 'sedition' used to refer to serious crimes and misdemeanors, but now, they've become political catch phrases, and have almost lost their meaning. I believe that until one of Rush's or Beck's empty-headed zombies attempts to overthrow the current government and/or make an attack on the life of a public servant in a high position of power, then it should be considered an act of sedition, and the Beck's and Limbaugh's of the world should stand trial along with the conspirators.
Having spoke my peace, back to Noonan's screed: Mark, you're in no position to take the moral high ground here, about how "liberals are slaves who, doing their master’s bidding..." because it has been well-documented time and time again that you acted like Bush's personal pit bull whenever a valid Bush criticism reared its ugly head.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. – Patrick Henry

We refuse to give up that force and we won’t be cowed by hacks like Deval Patrick. Call us seditious and we’ll wear that badge with pride – we do, indeed, seek the overthrow of the liberalism being imposed upon us. There will be no let up on our part until liberalism is consigned to the ash heap of history.

First off, self-labeling yourself as 'seditious' isn't something something to be proud of. Being labeled as "seditious' is the equivalent of being called a traitor to your fellow countrymen. Why the hell would you want that label slapped on your conscious?
Secondly, your attempt to tag yourselves as the re-incarnation of the ideals Patrick Henry and the rest of our Founding Fathers fought for are an insult to Patrick Henry himself. Henry and the lot were railing against a King who taxed his subjects to the point where the Monarchy would find new ways to squeeze a profit out of the people who were already poor or low income. If you had no currency left to give to King George, then land, labor, and crops would be next on the chopping block. To make sure none of His subjects revolted, those who did would be made an example of, namely, through imprisonment or hanging from a tree in the middle of town. President Obama has nowhere near reached that level of dictatorial brutality, nor would it ever happen. Quit aligning yourself with men like Patrick Henry when the flip side of our democratic process doesn't go your way.
Finally, there is no way you will ever be able to vanquish the concept of liberalism. Ideas never truly die, and they always find a way to return to the forefront. How do I know this? Take a look at countries like China and North Korea. Years after the Cold War ended and capitalism beat out communism, the theories and practices of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, etc. still live on through the current leaders, and their primary economic platforms.

Stand down, Mark. You're just making a complete fool of yourself.

Halfway there: the best (and worst) movies of 2010 so far

2010-05-26T16:38:00.001-07:00

Best of the best:

The Ghost Writer - Yes, Roman Polanski is a sick son-of-a-bitch. But as a filmmaker, he's at his best with The Ghost Writer, a political thriller that keeps you guessing and questioning everything until the film's revelatory and haunting ending. Ewan McGregor dives into one of his best performances as a Ghost writer who suspects that his new employee ex-Prime Minister Adam Lang (an excellent Pierce Brosnan) may be a war criminal. Exiled to a beach house on Martha's Vineyard, the Ghost's job to write for Lang goes deeper as his former processor suddenly dies but leaves across clues to Lang's ascendancy into British politics. Polanski shoots the movie as if we are in the Ghost's shoes: every frame asks us to question the motives of everyone and everything around us. The standout, though, is Olivia Williams as Ruth Lang, Adam's ball-busting wife with an ax to grind with his secretary/mistress (Kim Cattrall) and hidden motives as well.

Shutter Island - The Scorsese-DiCaprio duo is now 4-for-4 with the psychological-thriller Shutter Island, another triumph of bold, blistering storytelling from the great Martin Scorsese. Watching his latest yarn about two Federal Marshalls Teddy (DiCaprio) and Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) try to solve the mystery of missing inmate Rachel Solando's escape from the Alcatraz-like prison island that is the Ashcliffe mental hospital for the criminally insane, is like going 12 rounds with a prize fighter on his best day. Scorsese pummels us with Freudian secrets, communism, insanity a hurricane that threatens the walls of Ashcliffe, and a shocking revelation towards the end you don't see coming, and by the end you're walking out with more questions than answers. Here's a tip: just let the dark poet Scorsese paints sink into your skin. For decades, he's used the criminal underworld, the mean streets of New York, and moral corruption as a torch way to uncover the fragile human condition in his characters, and in this movie, his bread-and-butter approach to storytelling intensifies, tenfold as Teddy tries to piece together the mysteries of Shutter Island before he loses his own sanity.

How To Train Your Dragon - DreamWorks Animation fires the first shot in the race for animation domination in 2010 with the surprising coming-of-age drama, How To Train Your Dragon, a film that soars with thrilling 3D visuals and a potent, although familiar, story to match. Jay Baruchel gives scrappy humor and surprising depth to Hiccup, the village outcast who befriends the most feared of dragons, the stealth-bomberlike Night Rider (he names him Toothless), only to learn that during his encounters with the winged beast, that dragons are not as dangerous as the village of Vikings have them pegged to be. The same feeling of pure exhilaration when we saw Jake Sully taming and riding his blue-winged beast in Avatar is matched when Hiccup and Toothless take their first ride together.

Worst of the worst:

The Wolfman - The casting was there - Benicio del Toro as Lawrence, an actor who returns home to investigate the sudden death of his brother by a vicious beast, Sir Anthony Hopkins as the estranged father with a terrifying secret, Hugo Weaving as the ruthless inspector hired to track down the beast, and Emily Blunt as the widow to Lawrence's brother - and it wasn't a pussy-whipped horror film that isn't afraid to go for the jugular. So how did this wind up to be the worst movie I've seen so far? Simple: the actors themselves were wasted in their performances (in particular, Hopkins who hammed up his role to the point where one would shake their head in disbelief as to how he could accept this role in the first place) and the director, Joe Johnston, delivered practically no scares and even more shameful, no haunting residue the original Wolfman movie left on its audience.

Brooklyn's Finest - Tell me if any of the following themes sound familiar: One corrupt cop (Ethan Hawke) is lining his pockets with drug money after his team conducts the raids. An underground snitch working for the NYPD (Don Cheadle, WTF?) has his loyalties pushed to the brink between making detective and his criminal drug dealing friend (Wesley Snipes). And one officer (Richard Gere), who's life is in shambles - he starts the morning by finishing off last night's bottle of whiskey and having sex with a sympathetic hooker - is set to retire. If you're thinking that director Antoine Fuqua ripped off better, more thought-provoking, and hard-hitting crime dramas like The Departed, Lethal Weapon, and Fuqua's own Training Day, to name a few, then you're correct. Instead of giving insight to a city that's rotting away from the inside from corruption, drug use and the crumbling infrastructure of Brooklyn's neighborhoods, this cop drama just feels deep down phony.

More bullshit from Palin

2010-05-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

From the Book of Matthew:

12And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

13And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

My utter disgust for religious fanaticism has been documented many times over on this blog, and over at Banned and Dangerous. I hate the ignorant pawns of blind faith - the kind that asks you to unwaveringly follow without questioning and having second thoughts about one's faith, the kind of people who have the nerve to judge me because my viewpoints on God and faith are not the same as his or hers. It is revolting to me how any one person can take an innocent life and then claim that they were carrying out God's righteous will, or how any individual can mask their intolerance of another person or group through their Holy Books.

What I hate even more than the pawns, are the snake-old salesmen, the charlatans, the money-lining shyster-scumbags who prey on the lesser angels of human nature in order to assume power or make a quick dollar. Enter former Governor of Alaska and Former Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and her misguided belief that American law was based on Judo-Christian teaching.

According to Palin, the recent backlash against the National Day of Prayer is proof that some people are trying to enact a "fundamental transformation of America" and to "revisit and rewrite history" in order to shift the Christian nation away from its spiritual roots.

Palins's advice: "Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.

"What in the hell scares people about talking about America's foundation of faith?" Palin continued. "It is that world view that involves some people being afraid of being able to discuss our foundation, being able to discuss God in the public square, that's the only thing I can attribute it to."

Governor Palin, you're full of shit. The Founders created laws based on the ideas and beliefs that came from the Age of Enlightenment, where artists, thinkers, philosophers and the like began to strongly question the Church, the notion of a monarchy, and the idea of a select few ruling over the many. Laws like freedom of speech, the right to peacefully assemble, etc., did not come from the Bible.
And, as an FYI - If the Founders meant to build our Constitution and our laws around Christian teaching, wouldn't they have specifically announced in the Constitution that the United States subscribes to the Christian faith?

Ya think?!

2010-04-27T22:27:00.001-07:00

Newsweek's article on the teabaggers states the bleedin' obvious.

Surveyers asked respondents in California and a half dozen battleground states (like Michigan and Ohio) a series of questions that political scientists typically use to measure racial hostility. On each one, Tea Party backers expressed more resentment than the rest of the population, even when controlling for partisanship and ideology. When read the statement that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites," 73 percent of the movement's supporters agreed, while only 33 percent of people who disapproved of the Tea Party agreed. Asked if blacks should work their way up "without special favors," as the Irish, Italians, and other groups did, 88 percent of supporters agreed, compared to 56 percent of opponents. The study revealed that Tea Party enthusiasts were also more likely to have negative opinions of Latinos and immigrants.

As to the reason why these reactionary recneck bigots and outright crackers are so pissed off? When the teabaggers holler "we want our country back!" they mean they want their county back...when they were the majority in American society, as this revealing chart on future U.S. growth in population projects.

Among the other key population projections:

■ The Latino population, already the nation's largest minority group, will triple in size and will account for most of the nation's population growth from 2005 through 2050. Hispanics will make up 29% of the U.S. population in 2050, compared with 14% in 2005.
■ Births in the United States will play a growing role in Hispanic and Asian population growth; as a result, a smaller proportion of both groups will be foreign-born in 2050 than is the case now.
■ The non-Hispanic white population will increase more slowly than other racial and ethnic groups; whites will become a minority (47%) by 2050.

This is what it all comes down to for the teabaggers: they're afraid of being the minority party. It scares them that, in 40 years, they won't be the majority (ethnic-wise) anymore, and now the race is on to cling to their old prejudices and majority, foolishly believing that it will be enought to stop what what will eventually happen. In this sense, I feel sorry for this group. Almost.

Of course, many teabaggers are furious when they get painted as a hateful, racist group of pissed-off rednecks venting becasue the president is black, as Tom Fitzhugh states.

"It really makes me mad...They have tried to portray us as a bunch of radical extremists."

And here's Fitzhugh's beleifs about President Obama as the section continues on:

He considers Obama an abomination—possibly "the most radical-voting senator that ever was" and someone likely to "takeus down the path of destruction." He believes the administration is intent on taking away his guns, trampling on states' rights, and opening the borders with Canada and Mexico. He has serioanyone with a functioning brain belives that you ignorant fucks are anything but racists!us doubts that Obama was born in the U.S. and suspects that the president is a closet Muslim.

Yet Tom and his ilk want me to beleive that this group's outrage isn't motivated by race? A quick note to him and teabagger nation: comments, like the one Fitzhugh trot out, are the reason why African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, gays, and anyone with a functioning brain belives that you ignorant fucks are anything but racists!

This Date in History: April 23 Revisited

2010-04-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

On this date in history, April 23:

* 1635 - In Boston, Massachetusetts, Boston Latin School is estaablished, making it the first public school built in the United States.

* 1910 - U.S. Preisdent Theodore Roosevelt makes his "Man in the Arena" Speech, which later serves as inspiration to François Pienaar, the captain of the South African Rugbuy team in 1995.

* 1935 - The country of Poland adopts its own Constitution.

* 1949 - The People's Liberation Army is created under Mao Zedong.

* 1990 - Most importantly, on this day, Jonathon Purcell Holmes is born on this day to two loving parents, Rhonda Gamble-Holmes and Johnny Holmes.

Dumb and Dumber: America's Idiots

2010-04-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

Made this earlier tonight. I have a new Adobe photoshop, so I decided to have a little fun, at the expense of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman.

Uh...what the f%@k, Virginia!?!

2010-04-07T13:24:00.001-07:00

The month of April marks the beginning of the regular season in baseball, my birthday, and - thanks to Virgina's current governor Bob McDonnell - Confederate History Month. Yes, you read that right. Gov. McDonnell is celebrating the South plunging the nation into a war over slaves and states' rights.

WHEREAS, April is the month in which the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America in a four year war between the states for independence that concluded at Appomattox Courthouse; and

WHEREAS, Virginia has long recognized her Confederate history, the numerous civil war battlefields that mark every region of the state, the leaders and individuals in the Army, Navy and at home who fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth in a time very different than ours today; and [...]

WHEREAS, this defining chapter in Virginia's history should not be forgotten, but instead should be studied, understood and remembered by all Virginians, both in the context of the time in which it took place, but also in the context of the time in which we live, and this study and remembrance takes on particular importance as the Commonwealth prepares to welcome the nation and the world to visit Virginia for the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the Civil War, a four-year period in which the exploration of our history can benefit all;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert McDonnell, do hereby recognize April 2010 as CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.

Its been a while since i've taken an American History course and i'm sure the textbooks haven't radically changed all that much (unless the Texas schoolboard has done a near-whitewash of the reasons why the Civil War Broke out, the same way they blanked out Thomas Jefferson for Christian icon John Calvin); I understand why it is required studying in high school, but we never celebrated how a nation nearly tore itself apart and the blood that was shed becasue of fundamental differences.

What's worse is that the main reason why both sides engaged in the first place - the beleif that Southern States had the right to own other human beings for back-breaking labor - according to McDonnell, slavery wasn't the biggest issue that caused a Union to split in two and put the nation through four years of intense combat and bloodshed.

McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."

The issue of slavery wasn't merely an issue that led to the Civil War: It was the only thing.
Its the reason why young men, on both sides, fought in the battle of Gettysberg and died.
Its the reason why the Confederacy broke away from the Union.
I would ask what the fuck is wrong with the fuck is wrong with this governor, but that was before I found out two revealing facts about McDonnell:
1. He went to Regent University (aka: Pat Robertson's school of duh), and we all know that school's track record on their former law studensts.
2. His thesis, entitled The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade.

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

So allow me to rephrase my question: Virginia, why the fuck would you elect someone like this!?

An example of how laid back Southern California is

2010-04-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

Souther California experiences a 6.9 earthquake and what do we do? We tweet about it - some of us even brag about how cool it was - then we shrug it off, as if it never happened. Which it, for the most part, was: The only damages were shattered glass windows at certain liquor stores and at the Sports Arena, and some residents were without power...then got it back within minutes.

Apparently, it's the wildfires that get us freaked.

Don't stop, Democrats!

2010-03-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

This week, Democrats finally grew a pair and passed health care reform. The bill is far from perfect (many of us would prefer a public option, but we can takle that bridge later on in the year, and we will), but two things were proven: 1.) our government can still take on big issues and 2.) President Obama and the Democrats in the House and Senate have the spine and the will to stand by their convictions, instead of folding over like a piece of paper becasue Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh lie and distort the message that healthcare isn't a socialist plot to destroy America, but a right every citizen deserves; it shouldn't be a priveledge to prolong one's life when they get sick.

Anyway, I originally intended to make a long post about this occasion, but Bill Maher beat me to the punch.

To anyone who still believes we have the world's best health care system

2010-03-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

To all the conservatives and critics who are trying their damned hardests to block health care reform, then claim that our for-profit health care system is the best in the world - here are some damning facts about the U.S. system of health care:

-According the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 37th in the world of health care performance, and ranks 72nd in overall health.

-Of all the wealthy, industrialized nations of the world, the United States is the only one that does not guarentee all of its citizens with some form of coverage.

-The gross domestic product (GDP) America spends on health care is over 17%. by 2019, we will spend almost 20% (that's 1/6th of the national economy) on health care costs.

-A report published American Journal of Public Health last year, finds that 44,000-plus Americans die every year becasue of a lack of health insurance.

-The U.S. Census Bureau states that 45.7% of Americans are not covered.

Our currents health care system is nothing to pat oursleves in the back for.
Insurance industries like Aetna, WellPoint, and Humana (to name a few) rake in quarterly profits of billions of dollars, while dropping their patients left and right for "pre-existing conditions."
Business goons, like Ron Williams, the chairman and CEO of Aetna, recieve $38.12 million in bonuses, and Angela Braly, the President and CEO of WellPoint, has $14.86 million in stock options. Meanwhile, American families are forced into bankruptcy becasue of rising medical and hospital bills they can't afford to pay on a regualr salary.
There's no hint of compassion or care in our health care system - you know, the ingredients needed in treating the sick, wounded, and dying in any society - it's sending a messge, basicallly saying: "I've got mine. You have some illness and you need help to cover costs? Fuck you, you're on your own."

Not only is this third-world status of caring for a nation's citizens, this is capitalism in its ugliest expression. How can anyone say that we have the world's best health care system and have a straight face while saying it?

If after all the evidence presented you still don't believe that our health care system needs to be reformed, here's an ugly story about how an insurance company cut a patient's coverage because he has HIV.

(Reuters) - In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.

Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.

So he hired an attorney -- not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.

But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney's letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.

Thankfully, Mitchell won his case, but the courts discovered it wasn't just Mitchell who had been dropped before for his medical condition.

Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell's case reveal that Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators.

Capitalism at its best, folks! [/snark]
The current healthcare bill in Congress is far from perfect. There's no public option to keep the insurance companies honest and provide competition, among other complaints. But it is a first step on the road to obtaining universal coverage. We've been debating about this for decades and this is the closest we've ever been. To me, it doesn't make sense to go against a bill that will cover 30 million more people who really need it.

Wicked cool!

2010-03-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

Allow me to geek out and show two kick-ass trailers that will headed to theaters soon.

First one: Anyone who grew up in the 1980's remembers the film Tron. During its time, the movie was the standard in eye-popping visual effects. 25 years later, James Cameron's Avatar was what Tron in 1982: a bold, new vision of filmmaking. In 2010, the trailer to Disney's Tron: Legacy is - in a word - Un-fucking-believable. Cameron might have to give that tile back.

Then there's Iron Man 2, which looks totally badass. And Mickey Rourke is playing Whiplash!? Fuckin' A, I am so there!

Diamonds In the Rough: The 10 best movies of 2009 #6-10

2010-03-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

6. The Hurt Locker - Any filmmaker could have made this into another forgettable war movie dealing with the Iraqi War, or preach to the converted about how unnecessary it is for the country, or make it into film that celebrates our men and women with mindless action and crappy dialogue. What makes The Hurt Locker the first memorable war picture about the quagmire a tour-de-force of gritty realism and breathtaking ferocity, is that Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal don't preach and refuse to pick a side. They show the soldiers as brave men under fire, but also as conflicted guys hoping they come back home alive. Jeremy Renner gives the standout performance of the year as IED specialist Sgt. William James, a man with an addiction to his profession, but struggles to adapt to his regular life back home.

7. The Informnat! - Matt Damon has great comedic chops (see his roles as butt-boy Linus in the Ocean's 11 movies, the infamous "I'm Fucking Matt Damon!" ballad with funnygirl Sarah Silverman and his scene-stealing supporting role as himself in the season six finale of HBO's Entourage) to complement his amazing body of work thought the years. Never has Damon been this good: his performance as real-life wistleblower and white-collar criminal Mark Whitacre is all parts pitch-perfect comedic timing and quietly devastating. Director Steven Soderbergh, along with screenwriter Scott Z. Burns take this tale of one man's brilliant con job of playing the big business wistleblower and lining his own pocket, and how he constantly lies to himself to the point where he believes the tangled web he wove.

8. District 9 - Not since Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men has there been a sci-fi movie that turns the genre on its head and manages to look stunning and thrills while doing it. First-time director Neill Blomkamp blends alien contact, apartheid, and third-world living into one exciting and visually stunning film that rarely lets up or slows down. The aliens in District 9 aren't the ones Speilberg wowed us with in War of the Worlds and E.T.; they're part lobster, part mutated roach, all 100% frightening. Sharlto Copley is brilliant as Wikus van der Merwe, the fall-out employee who starts out relocating the prauns to District 10, and through infection of an alien chemical, ends up sympathizing the race his company has gruesomely exploited. Far from a brave new vision
of science fiction, District 9 shows us the human condition and how fear of the unknown brings out humanity's ugly, cynical, and uncaring face.

9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Simply put: its the darkest, most haunting Potter movie of the six. There's a confidence David Yates excuses after handling Order of the Phoenix: he's more confident and comfortable in trying to cram a 600+ book into 2 1/2 hours. The actors, which have always been top notch by this large British cast, raise their game to a whole new level, particularly Jim Broadbant as Hogwart's newest Potions mater, Horace Slughorn; Rupert Grint's ever-perfect comedic timing as Ron Weasly; the beautiful Helena Bonham Carter playing Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Lord Voldemort's trusted allies, simmering with seductive menace; and Daniel Radcliffe's ever-growing maturity as the title character, to name a few. The standout is Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, played with soulful vulnerability and moral doubt as he prepares to become a hired assassin for the Dark Lord. What gives Half Blood Prince its haunting power is cinematogrpher Bruno Delbonnel, capturing vividly and beautifully the dark forces that are closing in around Harry's magical world like an albatross around its neck.

10. Up In the Air - Its a bittersweet comedy of the moment: self-recluse Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) travels across America to fire you from your job because the bossman (a snarky Jason Bateman) is too much of a pussy to fire you himself. After many years of flying from state to state firing people and selling them the bullshit that they're gonna be fine (not to mention all those frequent flyer miles he's got saved), Bingham's need for human connection stares him in the face. In comes Alex (Vera Farminga) a corporate big shot who shares a similar love for American Airlines, traveling light, and trade and compare credit cards. Props to director Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) for blending touching romance, top-notch humor, and a no-bull honestly look on the state of business leaving its workers hung out to dry without any hope or a safety net.

The Best of the Rest: An Education, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Capitalism: A Love Story, Crazy Heart, Invictus, Watchmen, Precious: Based On the Novel "Push," by Sapphire, Julie & Julia, and Where the Wild Things Are.

Right-wing racists say the darndest things

2010-03-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

This was posted on Banned and Dangerous yesterday, and I wanted to post this on here.

WHY BLACKS HATE THE US CONSTITUTION? read on
The Founders were all White, Brilliant and smart. They created a Constitution for the White Children of Adam. There were no black founders. Our Founders considered Blacks beasts of burden.
If they had intended to include blacks they would have included blacks at the Constitutional Convention. In fact, they declared blacks as sub-human in the Constitution itself.

The US Constitution says Blacks are only 2/5 human. The Founders knew long ago that Blacks are Sub- Human apes..I say nothing. The US Constitution does.
Questions:
Are we trying to make Humans out of Apes?
Why do we allow them a Black Caucus?
Why are they in Congress or in Higher Offices?
Why are they in Law Enforcement?
Why are we allow they to have Black History Month?
Why are we allowing them to get away with Affirmative Action?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AFFIRMS BLACKS ARE 100% INFERIOR TO WHITES INTELLECTUALLY.
THEIR RIDE ENDS NOW!!!

Comment: This idiot also realizes that whites that were not well-educated and did not own land also joined slaves and women as people who could not vote, or were lower on the ladder in the eyes of the Founding Fathers in the early years of the United States, right?
He also realizes that, along with slaves and women, the people barred from attending the Constituitonal Convention were significant portions of his own race - i.e. poorly educated, non land-owning whites - the Founding Fathers supposedly made for their caucasion brethern. Only those who were rich, owned slaves, had land, and were highly educated attended. You know, the same people who wrote the freaking document!
By his rhetoric, me, ET, the Count, and this idiot would all be in the same boat: no represntation of any sort. And lets not forget that in the year 2010, whites are still the majority ethnicity group in the U.S. Somehow, its us "sub-human apes" that are taking everything away from Whitey.

News flash, white boy: you're not losing shit, so shut the fuck up!

Shutter Island

2010-02-28T19:24:00.001-08:00

Shutter Island, the new film by Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese, is as much of a mind-bender as the characters who inhabit the mental asylum for the criminally insane. On my first viewing on Saturday, it was like me and the audience were going 12 rounds with a prized fighter at the top of his game. The movie pummels the viewer with vivid and graphic flashbacks of Teddy Daniel's (Leonardo DiCaprio) past, hidden motives from the head honcho, Dr. Cawley (the great Ben Kingsley), and a deadly hurricane which threatens to bring down the walls of Ashcliffe, both literally and figuratively.

Here's a tip: just let all the madness and dark poetry Scorsese paints sink in. For decades, Marty's used the criminal underworld and the mean streets of New York City and Boston, to name a few, as a blazing torch way into the darkening, haunted depths of the human soul. From the terrifying opening score composed by Robbie Richardson, to the ever superb editing of Scorsese's longtime partner Thelma Schoonmaker, Shutter Island is another triumph of gut-punching storytelling mixed with utter devotion to the filmmaking of old.

Teddy and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are U.S. Marshals assigned to investigate the disappearance of one of Ashcliffe's patients, Rachel Solando. Once there, the pair quickly begin to realize that the truth behind the woman's disappearance is as elusive as she is. On Shutter Island, everyone has some demons - or secrets - buried within. Even Daniel's motives for taking on the case, are shrouded in mystery. That's all i'm telling you about Shutter Island, partially because there are certain parts from this head trip of a movie that I still don't understand. I will tell you that DiCaprio gives his most complex and devastating performance yet as Daniels, as he tries to connect the dots to the many mysteries on Shutter Island, before he loses his own sanity. I can tell you that Ben Kingsley plays Dr. Calwey with quiet menace that'll keep you guessing his agenda up until the end. And I can tell you that production designer Dante Ferrti and cinematographer Robert Richardson are magnificent in bringing to life this hellish mental facility.

In the end though, you don't have to figure everything out to realize that Scorsese's still at his best, even when the story twists, turns, and throws a twist that would shock M. Night Shyamalan himself. A great filmmaker and his talented cast will keep you enthralled every time.

***1/2 stars out of ****

Girls, don't do this!!

2010-02-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

This is, perhaps, the strangest thing i've heard of in the month of February: women adding tiny beaded crystals to spruce up the vagina. No, I am not making this up.

Vajazzling is a burgeoning beauty treatment, popular with celebs and kinky Martha Stewart-ites alike, that involves ladies bedazzling their freshly waxed lady parts just as they would their neato neckerchiefs or fancy fannypacks – with tiny, magical crystals.

So women aren’t just obsessively coiffing their “areas” to look like pre-teen Barbies – they’re now glue-sticking Barbie’s earrings down below, too?

What the hell? If you really want to impress us "down there" then just keep it odor-free, neat, and tidy. Trim it if you want; going bald is a plus in my book. Just don't bling-out your lady parts. If there are two things that don't need the sparkle treatment, its blood-sucking vampires (I'm talking to you, Edward Cullen!) and a woman's privates.

Diamonds in the Rough: The 10 Bes Movies of 2009 #1-5

2010-02-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

Like my 10 worst list a while back, this top 10 list isn't as timely as I hoped, but, once again, now is as good a time than any. 2009 marked the end of the first passing decade of the new century...and we went out with more questions than answers, and doubt rather than a sense of certainty we all felt after making history in 2008. CEO's are still practicing the "greed is good" philosophy that led to the financial catastrophe and recession we are still in, the promise of revamping the nation's health care system is in serious jeopardy of not passing Congress, and doubts are quickly rising about our newly-elected President's ability to carry out his agenda.

Movies in 2009 seemed to imitate life around us. Films that were sure-fire contenders for Oscar glory were deadpanned by critics (Nine, The Lovely Bones), blockbuster franchises turned out to be total crap (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), and average films managed to become favorites for awards season. Still, there were those that broke through all the mediocrity and garbage on 2009's disappointing movie-going season. A movie about the Iraq war managed to be both a white-knuckle-thriller and avoid preaching to either base. Pixar reminded us why they are still the kings of animation going into the 21st century. James Cameron took us to Pandora...and took the movie going experience to a whole new level. And the ultimate revenge fantasy came to life by the man who cut cop's ears off...among other twisted things. Here is my list of the 10 movies that mattered in 2009.

1. Inglourious Basterds - History tells us that Adolf Hitler and his newlywed Eva Braun died by committing suicide before Berlin fell to the Allies in 1945. In the eyes of Quentin Tarantino, Hitler and the rest of the Nazi high command meet their match at the hands of Brad Pitt, Hostel director Eli Roth and their squad of Jewish-American soldiers, known only as "the Basterds." Tarantino's latest effort was more talkative than Pulp Fiction, more violent than Kill Bill Vol. 1, and it was the most entertaining, balls-to-the-wall movie that came out this year. Tarantino's dialogue (subtitled mostly in German and French) is as ludicrous and engaging than ever, while prolonged suspense, tantalizing dialogue and outrageous acts of violence are mated together in a dance of carnal passion as only Tarantino can deliver. Pitt, playing the leader of the Basterds, takes Aldo Raine and plays him like a blast-from-the-past Apache warrior, exacting his mixture of revenge and near-psychotic enjoyment in slaughtering Nazis, with demented glee and raw intensity. Dianne Kruger plays bravery and brains as German movie star as Bridget von Hammersmark, in the biggest role of her life: acting as a double-agent for the Allies. Mélanie Laurent breathes fire and brimstone bottled up as Shosanna Dreyfus, the last French Jew who escaped execution from the hands of the charming, sadistic SS Cor. Hands Lander, who makes Ralph Finnes' Amor Goeth seem sane and friendly. And the film's real bastard, Christoph Waltz, as Lander, creates QT's most memorable character since Jules Winfield spouted Bible verses before going on a killing spree in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino provides the shot of adrenaline movies have been missing for far too long: a cast, a script and it's mad director, all unwilling to compromise to please the naysayers and create a bloody, entertaining, and chilling meditation on how America conducted its foreign policy during the Bush years.

2. Avatar - 11 years ago, James Cameron became the king of the box office with his overrated romantic drama, Titanic, and sailed that ship to Oscar glory in 1998, winning 11 Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Picture. In 2009, there's a new box-office king that has dethroned Cameron's tale of star-crossed lovers on a doomed ocean-liner, and it's...James Cameron. This time, the world of Pandora and it's indigenous people, the blue-skinned Na'vi are the big draw. Cameron brings 3D to the mainstream, shooting his breathtaking alien planet in the third dimension. But its the story, albeit predictable, that has us engaged: a crippled ex-marine (Sam Worthington) ships out to Pandora to get the natives to move out of the largest deposit of Unobtainium (a resource needed to fuel the dying planet Earth in 2154), only to end up falling for the tribal princess, Neytiri (an excellent Zoe Saldana), and joining their rebellion against the human invaders. We may have seen this tale before (Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai), and anyone can see the exploitation of the Na'vi in the movie can connect that to America's exploitation of Native Americans, but Cameron delivers it with eye-popping style and passion for his beautiful and terrifying new world.

3. Up - Pixar is to animation as Radiohead is to rock and roll: neither group can do no wrong. They can make their weakest releases - A Bug's Life and Cars for Pixar; Pablo Honey and Amnesiac for the Oxford quintet - and they would still be considered great. Their newest release, Up, continues that winning trend. This time around, they introduce us to Carl Fredrickson (voiced with weariness and touching poignancy by Ed Asner), a retired widow living in the same old house him and his now-deceased wife, Elle, lived in as the rest of the world around him becomes an isolating urban jungle. He uses the retirement saving he's collected, ties countless helium balloons to his house, and presto: it becomes a floating blimp with a roof and sets his sails to Paradise Falls. Accompanying him is a stowaway wilderness explorer, in the form of chubby eight year-old Russell (Jordan Nagai), and what soon begins as a trip to fulfil a promise to his wife, soon becomes a race to protect an exotic bird from the hands of obsessed and disgraced explorer Charles Muntz (the great Christopher Plummer) and a confrontation of Carl's and Russell's demons. With first rate visuals, a bittersweet storyline and a heart-filled score composed by Michael Giacchino, Up soars on Pixar's unlimited and endless heights of sheer imagination.

4. The Hangover - It's about four dumb, drunk boys sending off the friend, Doug, in style in Vegas, of all places, before he gets married in three days. One wild night later, the three buddies Stu (Ed Helms), Phil (Bradley Cooper), and Alan (Zack Galifianakis), the brother's groom - lose the groom-to-be. That's all you need to know about Tood Philip's The Hangover the most outrageous and ballsiest comedy of the decade, where Chinese mafia bosses, strippers, and returning Mike Tyson's prized tiger are all a part of the growing process for this trio of outgrown frat-boys.

5. Star Trek - The MVP of the summer movie season is J.J. Abrams, the director who breathed new life into the presumed-dead Trek franchise, by bringing style, swagger, and depth to our favorite characters from the original U.S.S. Enterprise. Chris Pine doesn't resort to the speaking style of William Shatner, but the cocky attitude, and the charm he displays are still seen thought the movie. Simon Pegg is hilarious as Scotty, and Karl Urban is inspired casting, playing the no-nonsense medical officer Lennard "Bones" McCoy. The surprise standout is Zacary Quinto as Spock. Instead of letting the pointy Vulcan ears act for him, Quinto digs deep to expose the conflict raging between his cold logic and his human emotions.

Taylor Swift - the voice of a generation!? Bullshit!!!!

2010-02-04T21:53:00.000-08:00

When Taylor Swift performed with Fleetwood Mac at the Grammys on Sunday, she - for all intentional purposes - sucked.

Now, she's taking heat for it, as she should - it wasn't a good performance at all. In comes Swift's record company, dubbing her, the "voice of a generation."

“I think [the critics] are missing the whole voice of a generation that is happening right in front of them. Maybe they are jealous or can’t understand that,” Borchetta said, “but obviously the people that she talks to are engaged with her. No one is perfect on any given day. Maybe in that moment we didn’t have the best night, but in the same breath, maybe we did,”

Voice of a generation?
Voice of a generation!?
Bullshit!!!!!!

Radiohead, U2, Coldplay, Eminem, Springsteen, Jay-Z, etc.....those are bands and artists who spoke to me and many others in this generation! Taylor Swift was fortunate to have Kanye West act like his dickish self and make her America's Sweetheart overnight! It's the main reason why she won Album of the Year! Without the outburst, she's just another tweener-bopper with a hit record.

Don't elevate this flavor-of-the-month garbage with that of Bob Dylan, or John Lennon, or The Boss, or Thom Yorke.....real artists who changed the face of music as we know it.

Dear Kanye West

2010-02-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Kanye,

When you lashed out on poor country-pop superstar Taylor Swift at the MTV VMA's last year, you had pretty much cemented yourself as the world's biggest jackass. Like an uncle we expect to get drunk and make a scene at Thanksgiving dinner every year, your proclamation that "Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!" was somewhat expected, because if you don't win for something (or in this case, the person you were pulling for doesn't win something), the world must stop for you and listen to how royally rat-fucked....again.

Then again, when you've made three critically acclaimed rap albums (The College Dropout, Late Registration, and my personal favorite Graduation), and earned your place as one of the best MC's to rock a microphone, then I guess you have every right to bitch and moan about how you've become music's version of Scorsese (let's be honest, you did get screwed over the last few years). Still, we all believed that your latest temper tantrum was the latest in people telling you to keep your ego in check and to shut the fuck up, and no harm would come from this.

That was, until last night, when Swift won sympathy votes from the Grammy voters for your outburst, and picked up the ultimate prize: Album of the Year.

Kanye, this could have all been avoided: your no-show at the Grammys this year, your dumbassery to steal the spotlight from Ms. Swift last year, the President of the United States himself calling you a jackass - all of this could have been avoided, if you had just kept your mouth shut. If you hadn't tried to make Taylor feel like crap onstage and make her America's sweetheart overnight, your girl Beyonce would have walked away with AOTY for I Am...Sasha Fierce. Now, we're stuck with this lovely, but awful live singer (let it be known that Swift and Fleetwood Mac don't mix).

Music today has become polluted with balls-less artists, marginally-talented teen queens and endless dance-club pop/hip-hop records, and I still consider you one of the best musical artists to come around in the new century. But you just gave Grammy the go-ahead to announce what we already knew to be the truth: huge record sales and mediocre talent talk, artists who put out quality work that pushes the genre and the industry as a whole can go straight to hell.

Thanks, Kanye.

Sincerly,
Jonathan Holmes

The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown: A look at the 2010 movie season

2010-01-27T21:23:00.000-08:00

It's a new decade for the movies, and there's bound to be features that will lead the class of 2010, those who will wearing the 'dunce' cap, and those you'll have to think twice about. Here's my picks of what to watch, avoid, and decide for yourself in the new year.

The Good:
Shutter Island (February 19) - the Scorsese-DiCaprio tandem is going for four straight films where I continue to be amazed at how Martin continues to be a filmmaker on the top of his game, and how Leonardo has come from being teenage heart-throb who was on top of the world, to one of our generation's most gifted actors. This time, the duo are taking us on a psychological mind-bender as two US federal marshals are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a woman from a mental asylum. The trailer looks like a bare-bones horror film (a first for Scorsese), ready to school the audience on what a horror film should be. With a world-class director who's firing on all cylinders at the helm, this will be an exciting and terrifying lecture.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (November 19) - If you thought Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) would go out in one huge bang this year, then you don't know jack about Hollywood. The Potter franchise is the highest-grossing film series in history, so they're gonna milk it for what it's worth and split J.K. Rowling's epic finale into two parts. From what we're told, Part I will be a road movie, with the trio of wizards hunting down the remaining bits of Lord Voldemort's (Ralph Finnes) soul, while avoiding capture from his followers, the Death Eaters. David Yates will finish off the series, and from what I hear about Part I, the more excited I become for the two-part finale.

Toy Story 3 (June 18) - after more than a decade, Woody and Buzz are back for the third installment to the Toy Story franchise. What new adventures will Andy's toy's embark on this time? I have no idea, the wizards at Pixar Animation Studios always keep us guessing in their trailers. What we do know is that these guys have the world's best batting percentage when it comes to their movies (see: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up), and they have no intention of slowing down.

Iron-Man 2 (May 7) - The shot of pure adrenaline that will kick-start the summer movie season. Why do I say this? Look at the trailer with a menacing Mickey Rouke as Whiplash, the last few seconds of Iron Man and War Machine in combat, and a sexy Scarlet Johannson as a brunette, and then tell me you're not excited.

Inception (July 16) - If Iron Man 2 is the muscle of the summer season at the theaters, the Christopher Nolan's mind-bender of a sci-fi drama is its brain. Alternate realities will be made, bent, and shattered entirely, as ones mind can change the entire course of the future...at least that's Nolan's idea with this movie. Trippy? Bizarre? Yes, on both counts. Is it meant to make the audience think and solve the brain games Nolan will no-doubt inflict? Most likely. I am so there.

The best of the rest:
Ridley Scott's remake of Robin Hood has him again teaming up with Russell Crowe, sans green tights, and focused on medical history rather than romanticized myth. Sweet. (May 14)
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are reunited (again), this time to go through the looking glass with his zany, bizarre and amazing update of Alice in Wonderland that could freak out young ones and fry the brains of hallucinogenic users. But Burton hasn't done me wrong, and his movies are always one hell of twisty ride, and this looks to continue the trend. (March 26)
A remake of John Wayne's classic True Grit!? What the fuck is Hollywood thinking?? Wait, Joel and Ethan Coen are directing? I'm in (December 25).

The Bad:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30) - The battle lines will be drawn this summer - Are you with Team Edward, the handsome, Emo vampire who sparkles in the sunlight, or Team Jacob, the werewolf who'll break out in hives if wears a shirt for more than five minutes onscreen. Sign me up for Team I don't give a fuck. The next installment of this teeny-bopper series will have fathers and boyfriends begging their daughters and/or girlfriends to drag them to another viewing of Sex and the City 2, than watch Bella (Kristen Stewart), choose between her vampire boyfriend (Robert Pattinson) that wants to suck her dry, and her pussy-whipped, wolf-boy friend (Taylor Lautner), all while the audience endures 2+ hours of lame posing and posturing, wooden characters and dialogue, and mediocre F/X wizardry. You want a real and exciting fantasy flick? Wait a few months for The Deathly Hallows Part I.

Step Up 3D (August 6) - James Cameron's Avatar is changing the way we look at movies, combining gorgeous visual effects in 3D and solid storytelling that is destined to be another Cameron classic. Unfortunately, Cameron has opened the floodgates for movies that don't need to be seen in 3D. Hell, Step Up 3D shouldn't even be seen in regular 2D. Its the same flashy dance moves we've seen before in the first two movies, plus such "hits" as You Got Served and Save The Last Dance. Patrick Swayze, the king of dirty dancing, must be rolling in his grave.

Dear John (February 5) and The Last Song (April 2) - I'm including these two because they're both adaptations of books by Nicholas Sparks, and to plead with the suits in Hollywood: please, cease with the movie adaptations of Sparks' novels! Every last one from The Notebook on down have been nothing but chick flick hell! Stop it.

Why Did I Get Married Too? (April 2) - Tyler Perry bust onto the scene with Diary of a Mad Black Woman in February 2005 as Madea, the howlingly funny aunt with a short temper and a .9 mm handgun in her purse at all times. I had a blast with the Madea series, but after seeing the same overly dramatic shtick over and over again, I've grown tired of it, and for that reason, i'm avoiding Perry's sequel to his most mature work to date, Why Did I Get Married?

The rest of the worst:
I like Mila Jovovich as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to sit through Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth chapter in the franchise, to do so. I'll happily watch her in The Fifth Element, thank you very much. Plus, haven't we learned from past flops (Doom, Max Payne, Hitman, the entire Resident Evil series) that movie studios shouldn't give popular video games the Hollywood treatment? (September 10)
Yogi Bear!? Warner Bros. is doing Yogi Bear!?!? And you've got Justin Timberlake playing Boo Boo!?!?!? Damn you, Hollywood! Damn you to hell!!! (December 17)
Another Halloween = another year of the Jigsaw murderer. Here's the twist to Saw VII...all the gruesome, grotesque, torture-porn violence will be in blood-splattering 3D! Gag. (October 22)

The Wild Cards:
The Last Airbender (July 2) - After 2 1/2 abysmal movies (The Happening, Lady in the Water, the last half-hour of The Village) M. Night Shyamalan has gone from Hitchcock's heir to one trick pony who's running out of tricks. His new movie, The Last Airbender, based on the cartoon show, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," looks great, but i'm still skeptical. All I know is that he cannot fuck this up, for his career's sake.

Salt (July 23) - Pros: Angelina Jolie is still the hottest, kick-ass woman working, playing an agent who's been framed as a Russian spy. Cons: It looks like the female version of the Borne series. Good thing that I'd follow Jolie anywhere.

Shrek Forever After (May 21) - Antiono's Banderas's Puss in Boots announces: "Alas, we have come the final chapter, my friends." The cartoon series that turned every children's fable on its head for shits and non-stop laughs is being given one more chance to redeem itself for the sins of the unfunny and overly familiar Shrek the Third, but do the writers and the main cast have what it takes to send Shrek, Fiona, Puss, and Donkey out in a 21 guns comedy salute?

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (May 28) - This is what I was referring to earlier: another popular video game being given the Hollywood treatment. The fact it's being handled by producer Jerry Bruckheimer could give off the impression that it's gonna be a brainless popcorn film, but directing the video game adaptation is Mike Newell, director of the exciting and thrilling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005. Although he made one of the better Potter movies in the series, Newell faces a much more challenging climb: making the first good video game turned movie.

Sex and the City 2 (May 28) - Confession: I liked Sex and the City: The Movie. There, I said it. Loved the themes of sisterhood and the bond between friends Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, but hated the unnecessary fashion shows, and the 2 1/2 hour running time. And now with the cameos of teen queen Miley Cyrus and Liza Minnelli added to the mix, I'm even more hesitant to be the only male counterpart in the theater.

Who am I? That's the great puzzle.

2010-01-19T21:23:00.001-08:00

I feel like talking about my past to anyone who willing to listen.

About the way I am. The shyness, the spurts of depression I get, the lack of a social life I have. And my obsession with Radiohead

Going back to 8th grade, I was, for the most part, a complete loner. You could always find me in the library, reading. Reading about past Academy Award winning movies, actors, and actresses. Reading J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Reading, mostly, to pass the time. The library was my sanctuary, my refuge from all the peer pressure I felt. Sure, I had a few friends and some classroom acquaintances, but as the year went on, I began to shut almost everyone out. I already felt like an outcast at a school that mom and dad hoped that my day didn't include receiving a phone call from the counselor that I was involved in another fight. Hilltop Middle was no repeat of Correia Junior High School where I finally had to learn to defend myself from asshole bullies after getting picked on and harassed constantly, but the disconnect I felt at Hilltop between me and my peers was always there.

They were involved in random activities. I wasn't.
They hung around in groups. I was in the library.
They were into the latest trends. I could have cared less.
Some were beginning to date or hang out on the weekends. My weekends consisted of being on the internet, or being at the movies, or reading.

High school didn't change that trend, for the most part. I still felt like an outcast, but I had friends who took me in and accepted me for who I was. We were on our own, private island, near the vending machine, across from the A.S.B. One thing I did try, though, was asking out this girl I liked. We shared a World Geography class together with a teacher we both thought was a total prick. I asked her if she wanted to go to the movies on Friday night, she said yes. We agreed to meet up at 9:00 at the Regal 16 one Friday night. I showed up, she never did. It was devastating to me. From that point on, I never asked out another girl that I was interested in, out of one bad experience, and out of fear that I would see the same result. If there was a dance, I avoided it like the plague. If there was some girl I really liked, I thought that there was no way in heaven or hell that she would give me the time of day, that I wasn't some jock on a sports team, or some really good-looking pretty boy. That I was Jonathan Purcell Holmes, another fucking loser in this place where you were a somebody or no-one at all.

Contrary to my own belief, I was somebody. I was just know by virtually everyone else as Radio (my given nickname by my friends in P.E.) and the name stuck. I was also featured in the school newspaper with a sharp pallet for writing my opinions about this, that, or the other. It still didn't help with my self-confidence issues, or the fact that the invisible barrier was still hanging around me. Everything I felt: loneliness, my depression, a disconnect from my peers, my shyness - I kept to myself.

That was, until I discovered Thom Yorke and his band, Radiohead, and more specifically, track four from "Kid A."

"That there / That's not me. I go / Where I please...I'm not here, this isn't happening."

It was as if the song, "How To Disappear Completely" was telling me what I had already known, but what I could never accept.The song was telling me that there's a reason for the way I feel, the reason why that barrier constantly surrounds me, like a prison: I have no connection to the things my generation were trying to push on me. It all looked alien to me, bizarre. The trends; the stories of my peers posting pictures of wild, drunken nights at parties; the pop culture of the moment fads most everyone was into - most of it seemed completely stupid, vapid, and pointless.

It all made sense to me. I was.....different. I was in a world where I didn't belong, and didn't care much for on top of it all. I felt as if it was only me. I felt completely isolated. Alone. Like if I told anyone, that they wouldn't understand. Like this was my cross to bear. Eventually I did tell someone, or more specifically, they found out, and understood what I felt. That was later on in my Junior year, and I still had support in my Senior year.

These days, I just try and learn to accept where I am right now. And maybe that's all I'm capable of doing right now.

Sorry for ranting on and on like that, and thanks for listening.

How did this happen?

2010-01-17T17:43:00.000-08:00

Allow me to vent here: how did this game so wrong for the Chargers? This one is an absolute stunner to me. I thought this year, finally, we would be able to make it to the Super Bowl.

We had the QB.
We had excellent WR's.
A sure-fire HOF TE.
And a solid Defense.
Everything seemed to come together for us.
And yet, the same result. A loss in the postseason.

Of all the loses by the Chargers in the postseason (04 in overtime against the Jets; the loss in '07 to the then unbeaten Pats; last year's loss to the Steelers) this one cuts more deeply than the rest.

A great season by the Chargers. Maybe next year.

Maybe......

I can't wait

2010-01-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

I am probably a Harry Potter nerd (movie wise). I know the actors who play the characters we adore and the directors who've filmed what HP movie. So imagine my surprise when I find the teaser to next year's two-part epic finish to arguably, one of the greatest film franchises in film history.

Shameless...utterly shameless.

2010-01-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

The images, the reports, and the stories we are hearing out of Haiti are shocking, heartbreaking, and astounding. Reports are that over 100,000 Haitians are dead because of the 7.0 earthquake that hit. The Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, has completely collapsed. Bodies are scattered across the streets, and its people are devastated or wandering aimlessly, looking for survivors, family members, or a safe haven. There's even talk that unless serious humanitarian aid isn't reached quickly, the county could fall into chaos.

These kinds of descriptions and images that capture an international tragedy would shake the hardest of hearts to give sympathy to those suffering.

That is, if you're televangelist Pat Robertson, who couldn't pass up an opportunity to spit into the faces of the Haitians who are struggling to survive tonight.

And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story. And so, the devil said, "OK, it's a deal."

Pat Robertson should know all about making a pact with the devil. He and his non-profit outfit Operation Blessing made a similar pact with African dictator Mobuto Sese Seko during the Rwandan genocide.

Far from the media's gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire's then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

Robertson's dealings didn't stop with Seko. The article also states that he also was in business with Lybia dictator Charles Taylor.

Absolved of his sins, Robertson dug his heels back in African soil. In 1999 he signed an $8 million agreement with Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor that guaranteed Robertson's Freedom Gold Ltd.--an offshore company registered to the same address as his Christian Broadcasting Network--mining rights in Liberia, and gave Taylor a 10 percent stake in the company. When the United States intervened in Liberia in 2003, forcing Taylor and the Al Qaeda operatives he was harboring to flee, Robertson accused President Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country."

Pat Robertson's comments today are anything but compassionate, and his further business deals with Taylor and Seko are nowhere near Christian teaching. He is a charlatan of the first order, a bastard willing to step over his religion and the suffering of other people to make a buck or to push his hateful agenda. I just hope that, if there is a Hell, there is a reserved space for Pat Robertson.

Random Questions: The Sports Edition

2010-01-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

It's a new year, and to open Jonathan's Corner for 2010, it's time for a new round of Random Questions! We're in the middle of some of the best weeks in the sports world, and already some guys are making waves - most of them for all the wrong reasons, and I'm here to call 'em out. Enjoy, and don't forget: you can comment on my questions as well.

- Even if you're joking, why would you bring a gun into an arena and pretend to threaten a teammate over gambling issues? By now, you know the tale of Washington Wizards point guard Arenas, the idiot that brought guns to the locker room, knowing that he was violating NBA rules about bringing in firearms into a stadium. Now the story gets worse: Arenas drew a handgun at his teammate, Javaris Crittenton, over gambling debts. Not only was the gun loaded with a bullet, but the guns he brought into the arena were unregistered as well. Didn't athletes learn from Plaxico Burress' mishap to not carry firearms on their person? For fuck's sake, you are a wealthy athlete, if you feel that your celebrity makes you a walking bullseye, then hire a damn bodyguard! Adding insult to injury, this jackass make a joke about his incident during a warm-up to Washington's game against the Philadelphia 76'ers in the form of mimicking his fingers for guns and pretending to shoot them. This ignorant dumbfuck deserved what he's got: an indefinite suspension without pay and a soon-to-be trial, and what he might receive - jail time.

- Why do you brag about crashing the party when you have virtually no business being there, and then saying you're hot shit, when all evidence suggests otherwise? Rex Ryan and the New York Jets are in the NFL playoffs at a record of 9-7 and are seeded fifth in the AFC postseason bracket, courtesy of coach Jim Caldwell's decision that going for 16-0 didn't mean squat to the Indianapolis Colts as a squad, and the Cincinnati Bengals shutting it down after capturing the AFC North crown and dealing with the sudden death of wide receiver Chris Henry. Most people would call that being really lucky and coming through the back door, but to coach Ryan, it means New York should be the favorite to win Super Bowl 44. Give me a break. The only reason you're in is because the Colts and the Bengals took out their starters and game 'em a freebie after both teams locked up everything they wanted. Sure, you've got the league's no.1 overall defense and the league's no.1 overall running game, but you also have Mark Sanchez. A rookie quarterback who thrown 20 int's this year - the second-most of any quarterback in football. And with the offensive firepower Indy and San Diego have, there's little chance the Jets will be able to stay stride for stride in the next round, should they get past the Bengals. Rex, your team are the underdogs. Embrace this role. Don't mouth off that you're team is swinging the biggest dick when it's really only 4 inches long.

Not even during the winter holidays can Obama catch a break from conservatives

2009-12-23T13:12:00.000-08:00

In this increasingly political and ideological divided American landscape, one of the few things we can find common ground in is the decency to leave partisanship to side during the winter holidays, and wish each other a safe and Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah if your Jewish), and a Happy New Year, and we'll resume our ongoing clash of ideologies in 2010. Since this year town hall meetings and Addresses to the Congress have become popular venues for people to yell, shout, and bitch without regard for basic forms of respect for other people, one would believe that even the spirit of the holiday season can't get tarred and feathered with partisanship.

Enter conservative columnist Tony Blankley and his piece on the Huffington Post about his hope for the holiday season. And if you think it's the standard peace on earth and goodwill towards man sentiment, you're nuts.

Taking stock this second Christmas after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, as a conservative Republican (with growing tea-party tendencies) I'm filled with a thrilling, unexpected hopefulness that the president may be well on his way to losing his battle for the hearts and minds of the American people -- tempered by a shocked disbelief that so much long-term damage could have been perpetrated on the American economy, national security and way of life in just 11 months of ill-judged governance.

Mr. Blankley: The same rule that's applied to someone's death should be applied to the holidays - if you don't have anything kind to say about someone, then it's best to keep your thoughts to yourself.

Remarkably, this view could apply equally to the left and to the right. Mr. Obama first thrilled, then disappointed and now enrages the left with his policies of (as they now see it): (1) giving the banks, health insurance companies, drug companies, for-profit hospitals and Washington lobbyists everything they want; (2) doing nothing for middle-class homeowners; and (3) escalating the war in Afghanistan.

Yeah, we're disappointed that for all of the president's talk on creating a public option for the middle class and getting tougher on Wall Street, he has continued down the same path as president's have before him (except in the case of escalating the war in Afghanistan, we should have known Obama would stay true on finishing the job in the Afghan region). But I do recall having Obama say that there would be setbacks and false starts along the way, and no doubt, i'm going to disagree with the president more issues to come. But this is one liberal who isn't going to do what so many pissed-off liberals and progressives are threatening to do or have already done: say 'fuck it, time for a third party candidate in 2012,' which will make us feel better in the short term, but it won't change jack shit in the long haul.

Of course, conservatives are appalled at (among other things) the trillions of dollars in new deficits, the nationalizations, the trillion-dollar partisan slush fund (i.e., stimulus packages), the attempted federal government takeover of the private economy via carbon taxing and regulating, the weakening of our anti-terrorism efforts, the never-ending worldwide apology tour, the undercutting of allies while appeasing enemies, and the ongoing effort to destroy our health care system and replace it with a socialized, rationing Euro-system.

So tell me, exactly where was the conservative outrage when Bush Jr. handed out billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% of Americans? Why didn't the so-called fiscal conservatives call out the Bush administration when they were ballooning the federal deficit to the point where Wall Street almost went under last year?
Also, your fake outrage over the Obama White House's approach to foreign policy is pathetic. Remind me: which party was it that staunchly defended and acted as the pit bull when Bush and Cheney lied an entire nation into a war of choice? Exactly which president thought that tough talk and acting like we were the biggest, baddest bully on the world's playground would help us in winning the War on Terrorism? And while the previous administration presided over torturing enemy combatants, who defended such barbaric, medieval, and illegal techniques vehemently? Oh, that's right: when a Republican president starts an illegal war, tortures enemy combatants, and violates the Constitution, then all that means is that he's protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. When a Democratic president engages in diplomacy to solve foreign affairs, he's weakening national security by not calling in air strikes!

There's a reason why I don't plan on ever voting for your party, Mr. Blankley. The current crop of stuck-in-the-mud Reaganites in Congress, coupled with big business first fiscal conservatism, radical Christian fundamentalists, and the bat-shit simpleton TEA-Party movement further remind me why the GOP cannot be entrusted with political power in this country until they return to some form of functioning normalcy. I just just hope p.o.'d progressives can find that same sentiment again. We can choose to let setback after setback make us stay home on 2010 and 2012 and allow a (shudder) Sarah Palin to run the Oval Office and get her hands on the nuclear codes. Or we can fight for what we believe in and be ready to swallow our pride and make tough compromises when we don't get our way.

President Obama must also understand that although that we are still on his side, that if doesn't dig deep and find a pair of cajones and fight for his base, his eloquent speaking abilities might not sway us in the 2012 Presidential elections. We understand (or at least I hope some liberals do) that in order to bring about meaningful change and reform to America, sometimes you have to pragmatic about what you can get, and what's just a pipe dream at the moment. But Obama must quickly learn that compromise can only go so far until it's just a piece of legislation that looks like it was written by the other side, word for word. He will eventually have to learn to draw a distinct line in the sane and risk pissing people off. Right now, he has to show that he's fighting for his base, and for middle America, and not just bowing to Wall Street and Big Pharma.

Ladies and gentlemen, the AFC West Champions

2009-12-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

The San Diego Chargers....if you're keeping score, it's San Diego's fourth consecutive title since Philip Rivers assumed the QB position after releasing Drew Brees to the New Orleans Saints in 2006, the third under Norv Turner, and their fifth title in six years (2004, 2006-2009). After the Bolts got spanked by the Denver Donkeys on Oct. 23, If you would have told any Chargers fan that we'd go on a nine game win streak, win the West, and potentiality fight for the no.2 seed in the AFC playoff picture and the first-round bye week, we all would have had a nice laugh, and continue to sulk. Not Norv, or Philip, or the rest of this Chargers team. Despite injuries to Center Nick Hardwicke, Nose Tackle Jamal Williams, among others, and a mediocre 2-3 start, big props for this team not to hit the panic button and win the games they needed to win to be placed in this position.

The 100 Best Films of the Decade, Part 4

2009-12-19T13:37:00.000-08:00

70. Shrek (2001) - Sure, Shrek 2 was flat-out hilarious, and Shrek the Third was a rehash of left-over pop-culture gags and crude jokes, but the original still stays with me. I loved how this sweet and funny-as-hell spoof took every fantasy fable from The Three Pigs to Rapunzel, used every universal, cliched and worn-out trick from said stories and made this kid's story about a isolated ogre and his ever-chattering ass trying to rescue a princess for the short-stature prick of a king, adult friendly as well. Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz bring the funny and touching romance in Shrek and Fiona, but Eddie Murphey is the side-splitting standout of the bunch as Donkey, and is easily the best comic sidekick this decade.

69. Superbad (2007) - It's the moment when Seth (Jonah Hill) is pointed out that the girl he was dancing with at a house party just used his pants leg as a tampon, when I realized what this raunchy high school flick was: my generation's version of American Pie. Two best buds Seth and Evan (Michael Cera) attempt to buy booze and score with their dream girls Jules (Emma Stone) and Becca (Martha MacIssac) on the last night of their high school lives. Add in a nerd even Napoleon Dynamite wouldn't hang with in Fogel (the brilliant Christopher Mintz-Plasse) tagging along as under the now-infamous McLovin', two incompetent cops (Seth Rogen and SNL funnyman Bill Hader), and artful dick drawings, and you get a vulgar, crude, hilarious and honest look at teenage boys being teenage boys.

68. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - The only thing stranger than this oddball romantic comedy from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) about a salesman and the Brit executive (the charming Emily Watson) who sees something deeper, past his shy and sometimes pent-up violent nature, is the fact that Adam Sandler shows his acting chops. Yes, the same person who starred in Billy Madison and The Waterboy, brings more than just his regular idiot-boy shtick. Sandler bristles with insecurity, isolation, humor and inconsolable rage - sometimes, all at once in Barry Egan. He's a knockout.

67. Traffic (2000) - Of all the films Steven Soderbergh has done this decade (Erin Brockovich, the Oceans 11 trilogy, The Informant!, Che, to name a few), his no-bull look at the drug war is my favorite from him. Interlocking stories - the segment about the newly-appointed anti-narcotics czar (Michael Douglas) fighting two wars, America's War on Drugs and the one at home with her daughter's decent into freebasing addict status (Erika Christensen in a heart-wrenching performance); the San Diego-based drug lord (Stephen Bauer) and his wife (an excellent Catherine Zeta-Jones), oblivious as to how hubby makes his money; and a Tijuana narc officer (Benicio Del Toro) caught in a trap between his duties and the corrupt officials who work for the drug cartels - all serve their purposes without preaching to anyone, except weaving a story in which the characters affect everyone without meeting face to face.

66. Ray (2004) - Much like with Adam Sandler in P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, who here thought comedian Jamie Foxx could give a brilliant performance as the late and great Ray Charles, much less act? Those who didn't raise your hands, look to his breakout role as a cab driver in Collateral, but I digress. Foxx doesn't just play Charles, but so much as nail every nuance and gesture. Watching him struggle through blindness and drug addiction is harrowing and haunting, and Foxx completes the journey with one of the most powerful performances this decade.

65. WALL-E (2008) - Common sense wold dictate that after making animation landmarks with Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, that Pixar Animation Studios would finally run out of gas and release a mediocre, cliched animation flick. 30 wordless minutes into writer-director Andrew Stanton's WALL-E, in which a robot is programmed to clean up after Earth becomes uninhabitable for human life to continue on living, the wizards at Pixar show no signs of letting up or slowing down anytime soon. WALL-E is a gorgeous, and heartfelt, and haunting picture that stays with you long after the credits roll. Gorgeous, because it's what Pixar does best with their animation; heartfelt, for the romance between WALL-E and EVE (the dance outside the Axiom spaceship is one of the most moving scenes i've seen a film since Maya talking about her love of wine in Sideways); haunting, because of the film's vision of planet Earth as a garbage wasteland after both corporate greed coupled with humanity's ignorance nearly destroying their home.

64. Batman Begins (2005) - In the hands of Christopher Nolan, he breathes life into a franchise that looked like it had nothing left. As haunted, playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale gives him and his alter ego Batman, the film's grieving heart and battered soul. Nolan doens't head straight for the Batsuit or the Batmobile. We go to the source of Wayne's troubles: his traumatic childhood - from the fall in the well full of bats to the moment he witnesses his parents shot in cold blood - and his search to find justice and himself in the Himalayan mountains.

63. School of Rock (2003) - Probably the coolest, most kick-ass (though fictional) rock band i've seen....and they're only in grade school! The lead singer? A 30-something deadbeat faking it as a teacher for a private school academy for a chance to play in Battle of the Bands. It screams idiocy and borders on near-pedophilia, but kudos to screenwriter Mike White, and director Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise) by keeping the story between the young characters and their teacher, (an off-the-walls comedic performance by Jack Black) about them, and the sick music they play. Rock on, kids.

62. The Last Samurai (2003) - Say what you will about Tom Cruise (an ego-driven dick who's part of a crazy, brainwashing cult), but as Capt. Nathan Algren, an alcoholic soldier ashamed of the sins he's committed against an indigenous tribe, it's his finest hour as an actor. His job now is to wipe out the samurai, led by the rebel Katsumoto (an excellent Ken Wantanabe) in order to modernize Japan with the West, only to become captured and end up joining Katsumoto's cause. Critics say Edward Zwick's moive was nothing more than a romanticizing of federal Japan. That's the point. The Last Samurai is a sweeping, romanticized tale of the waning days of a world we now only remember in history textbooks, and to that regard, it's one powerful period piece with stunning cinematography work and a mesmerizing score by Hans Zimmer.

61. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - Confession: up to seeing Woody Allen's funny, sexy, and heartbreaking comedy, I have never seen anything by Allen. Afterwords, I snatched up all the work he's done this decade (Match Point, Scoop, Whatever Works, Cassandra's Dream). This is easily my favorite. I love the sexual tension between Scarlet Johannson, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz, and I loved the dialogue between all of Woody Allen's characters. What I loved most of all was Cruz as Maria Elena, who is literally, lightning in a bottle. She's funny, wildly seductive, and quietly heartbreaking.

The 100 Best Films of the Decade, Part 3

2009-12-10T00:07:00.001-08:00

80. Chicago (2002) - Confession: I couldn't stand this movie when it was received all the praise that it did. I still think The Pianist (another movie that's on my list) was far superior than this re-telling of Bob Fosse's 1920's hit play. I really didn't like how Queen Latifa got screwed by the Academy by taking Catherine Zeta-Jones over her for Supporting Actress. Years lather, though, this exciting and sassy movie grew on me. I fell in love with the musical no's, including the kick-in-the-jams opener "All That Jazz," the seductiveness of Latifa's "You Be Good to Mamma," and the heartbreaking ballad from John C. Reilly's Amos Hart singing, "Mr. Cellophane." And watching Richard Gere's dynamic performance as Billy Flynn and his tap dance solo, "Razzle Dazzle," is nothing less than fucking magic. I loved how Zeta-Jones' Velma Kelly and Renee Zelwegger's Roxy Hart doe their damned hardest to one-up one another for fame - ironic, considering how their catfights for the limelight would become a metaphor how today's starlets sink to any degrading low for their 15 minutes - and to buy their way out of prison. And I loved the movie's irresistible swagger it displayed. Simply put, it's a grand old time.

79. The Wrestler (2008) - From the moment Mickey Rourke appears on the screen as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a self-described "broken down piece of meat," wrestler and estranged father, he immediately has our undivided attention. By film's end, it's a harrowing and haunting performance where Rourke, like The Ram, leaves everything - his love for the sport, and his life - in the ring. Rourke's performance is something you won't soon forget. The same goes with Darren Aronofsky's gritty and soul-bearing direction.

78. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) - The best Potter movie since Alfonso Cuaron's Prisoner of Azkaban, the sixth installment of J.K. Rowing's masterful children's literature series, is also the most beautifully shot (cinematographer Bruno Debonnel deserves to have Academy voters singing his praises) and mature of the set. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are all aces, but it's the supporting crew that shocks and wows you, particularly the dynamic Alan Rickman as Snape, who's mere scowls and expressions do more acting than the lines he sinks into; Helena Bonham Carter is sexiness villainy personified as the mad Bellatrix Lestrang; the suprising and haunting Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, Harry's arch-rival given a job by the evil Lord Voldemort that could break his soul in two; and the magnificent Sir Michael Gambon as the clever and wise Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

77. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - Once a project that the late Stanley Kubrick passed on to Steven Speilberg a few years before his death, Kubrick's vision of a crumbling world in the near future and the story of a android child programmed to love comes to breathtakingly, vivid life in Speilberg's hands. Haley Joel Osmet's touching and haunting performance as David, the young android who wants to be a real boy, proved that his breakout hit as the kid who could see dead people in The Sixth Sense was no fluke.

76. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) - Controversial is an understatement. Michael Moore's blistering, mad-as-hell documentary slamming the Bush administration's actions after the wake of the 9/11 attacks, started a firestorm of debate about the War in Iraq, our approach to the War on Terrorism, and about the Commander-in-Chief himself. Moore fudged facts, divided audiences and made movie history as his documentary became the highest-grossing documentary of all time. A must watch for anyone who wants to capture the intensity of debate dealing with the Iraq War, and the Bush presidency.

75. Chocolat (2000) - Like Chicago, this one eventually grew on me over time. A comic fable about a mother (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter (Victoire Thivisol) who set up the chocolate shop in a small French village and causes a sensual commotion during the forty days of Lent. Maybe I was too young to feel giddy and warm about the film's humorous and sensual nature, but as I grew older, I've come to love this irresistible and delicious fable from director Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules).

74. Open Range (2003) - It's no Unforgiven, but this western is a classic nonetheless, thanks in part to someone who's made this kind of movie before: Kevin Costner shoots the vast, American West with a sweeping passion. Charley (Costner) and Boss Spearman (the great Robert Duvall) are two cowboys seeking justice as one of their on is murdered by a corrupt rancher (Sir Michael Gambon) and his cronies. Of course, there's a love interest (Annette Bening as the town nurse) and there's a climatic standoff (it's a perfectly shot action piece) but the driving force is between Costner and Duvall as two weary cowboys living in a country that has little need for cowboys.

73. Maria Full Of Grace (2004) - Knockout performances don't get any better than watching Catalina Sandino Moreno play Maria Alverz, a 17 year-old from Colombia leaving her job at a rose factory for a life as a drug mule. Watching Moreno's Maria swallow pellets of heroin is just as hard as watching an example of the consequences of what could happen if a pellet should leak out during the flight to New York. Give credit to first-time director Joshua Martson for the no-bull look at the human element of drug traffiking, and the lengths of which Maria - and many immigrants - are willing to undertake to pursue the American Dream.

72. Crash (2005) - Between a film centering around race relations in America and two gay cowboys, Oscar voters went with the safer pick in Paul Haggis' multi-layered drama about the connections several people will share with one another in the span of 36 hrs, which isn't saying much. This movie and it's characters confront their racially-held stereotypes about others, and become victims themselves. All the actors excell, but the standouts are Matt Dillon as a racist cop tending to his ailing father; Sandra Bullock as the wife of a D.A. who's car was hijacked at gunpoint; rapper Ludacris as a car thief who ponders with his partner (Larenz Tate) about race, class and life; and Thandie Newton, the wife of a black TV director (Terrance Howard) who was sexually molested by Matt Dillon's character.

71. Juno (2007) - I can't remember the last time i've seen any actor or actress burst forth with as much biting wit and aching vulnerability than Ellen Page as Juno McGruff. It's a joy to watch Page sink into Juno - a high school student who winds up pregnant to her boyfriend Pauly Pleaker (Michael Cera) who decides to give the baby away to two hopeful parents (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) - and let her rip into some of the best lines i've heard in a while. Of course, the credit also goes into first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody for pouring sharp humor and unflinching honesty into Juno's world - a world that's all to familiar for anyone who remembers growing up in their teenage years.

The 100 Best Films of the Decade, Part 2

2009-12-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

90. Casino Royale (2006) - Daniel Craig might not look like 007 in some of the eyes of the fanboys our there, but to me, he is the embodiment of the James Bond psyche: an emotionally detached, arrogant, narcissistic killing machine. Here, in this reboot of the Bond franchise, Craig nails Bond's world to the letter. Let's not forget that after the awful The World Is Not Enough, and the disappointing Die Another Day, Casino Royale is the best-looking - and most exciting - Bond picture since Goldeneye.

89. Thirteen (2003) - If Mean Girls was a satirical look on the pressures of emerging womanhood in high school, Catherine Hardwicke's '03 debut about a straight-lace good girl gone off the deep end bad is the in-your face realism of growing up through the eyes of a teenage girl. Evan Rachel Wood is stunning as Tracy, the protagonist transformed into every parent's nightmare: an out-of-control, drug fueled wild-child that's slowing deteriorating on the inside.

88. Team America: World Police (2004) It's probably the most outrageous puppet film ever made. It figures that South Park bad boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone would somehow take a satirical approach of America's destructive need to police the world after 9/11 and infuse puppet sex, lampoon Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn (among others) for taking themselves way too seriously, and have North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il singing a heartfelt ballad, "I'm So Ronley."

87. Gangs Of New York (2002) - Before watching this stunning period drama from Martin Scorsese, I have never watched any of his films, and I hated Leonardo DiCaprio with a burning passion. Almost three hours later, I walked out as a fan of Scorsese's splendid mastery of his craft, and of DiCaprio's emergence as an actor, and not some pretty-boy hack who gets boned in almost every role he's in. The triumph is in how Marty's vision of the immigrant experience in 19th century America is presented: production designer Dante Feretti, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus,and actors DiCaprio, Daniel-Day Lewis, Cameron Diaz, John C.Reilly, etc) all paint this visually striking and unforgettable story of people carving out their piece of America by whatever means necessary.

86. Ratatouille (2007) - The story of a rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswald) with a passion to set the Paris restaurant scene ablaze with his cooking skills sounds like a shitty, cliche-riddled after school special on Playhouse Disney. If you're writer-director Brad Bird and the wizards at Pixar Animation Studios, it's a gorgeous, funny and touching love letter to Paris, France that's sealed with a kiss, and yet one of five movies from the studio that takes it's place upon my list.

85. My Big, Fat Greek Wedding (2002) - The movie that opened my eyes to the independent movie scene. And what a way to do it: Star and screenwriter Nina Vardalos shows us the insanity of a family during the lead up to Toula Portokalos'(Vardalos) wedding to non-Greek vegan Ian Miller (a charming John Corbett). Sure, the jokes are corny and repetitive, but the love between Nina and John's character's is genuinely real and touching.

84. Where The Wild Things Are (2009) - Maurice Sendak's short tale of childhood imagination is a beloved children's story that stays with both parent and child who read it. In director Spike Jonze's hands, its a thrilling and emotional powerhouse story of Max (a hellva performance from 12 year-old Max Records) and his imagination escaping to an island where Wild Things rule without rules of boundaries after a fight with his divorced mother (a terrific Catherine Keener) and new beau (Mark Ruffalo). Jonze, along with co-writer Dave Eggers, and cinematographer Lance Acord capture Max's wild world and the creatures who inhabit it the same as the entire movie: like a boy filled with emotions that he can't explain.

83. Training Day (2001) - For the longest time, I've always seen Denzel Washington as playing the protagonist. Boy was it thrilling to watch Washington play a dirty cop in Alonzo Harris, teeter-totting between training Jake Hoyt (a great Ethan Hawke) and collecting money for the Russian Mafia to pin a murder on someone. The standoff between Hawke and Washington towards the film's end is as explosive as any gunfight director Antoine Fuqua delivers in this tale of crime and consequences, the narc officer who doesn't know up from down, and doesn't much care anymore.

82. 28 Days Later (2003) - In Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic London, a virus unleashed onto the citizens doesn't make the infected traditionally slow, monotone, and devour brains. These fuckers are fast, they go for the arteries, and make noises like diseased dogs released from hell. Unlike most horror films, 28 Days Later sets a new watermark in taking you on a wild and frighting ride through the end of civilization by pummeling the viewer with danger lurking in ever empty corner and hitting you hard, fast, and often with zombie-shredding violence. Have fun going to sleep afterwords.

81. Spider-Man (2002) - It was the superhero movie that could be campy, but have a soul and a solid storyline also. Kudos to director Sam Rami and screenwriter David Koepp for displaying to everyone how to make an enjoyable summer popcorn film that doesn't sacrifice outstanding action pieces and excellent visual effects for story and character development.

Worst. Vampire. Movie. Ever.

2009-12-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

A little story about how tonight was supposed to go: mother and I wanted to go to the local movie theater. What to see?

Up In The Air?, In limited release (L.A., New York, etc.).

Fantastic Mr. Fox? Loved it, didn't start until 7:10. Mom didn't want to wait that long.

Precious? Wasn't playing there, and I'm not in the mood for a downer film at this time of year.

My suggestion to our dilemma? Watch, for the third time, Quentin Tarantino's excellent Inglorious Basterds. Easily one of -- if not -- my favorite film of 2009.

There we are, standing in line, and i'm about to watch Brad Pitt butcher the Italian language in front of the movie's real bastard, Col. Hans "the Jew Hunter" Lander (Christoeph Waltz, in a deliciously evil performance that will earn him a Best Supporting Actor statuette in March)...not to mention, Tarantino's own ultimate butcher job - the outcome of World War 2, where instead of Hitler and his floozy hiding out in a bunker while the Allied troops begin their march on Berlin, du fuhrer gets a hailstorm of bullets to the face (along with the higher-ups in the Nazi high command) while watching a propaganda picture.

"Welcome to the Regal, what movie would you like to see?" says the employee working the box office.

"Two military for New Moon, at 6:35."

I stared at my mother, at a loss for words.

In a heartbeat, she decides to drag me into a two plus hour teen/emo/vampire soap opera that I hated the first go around with Twilight. Now, here I am, again, about to enter a world where vampires glitter in the sunlight, where moping is a national pastime in the sleepy town of Forks, Washington, and where annoying middle-school girls blatantly ignore the commercials that ask the audience to silence their cell phones and scream at the sight of two, wooden Abercrombie & Fitch models as they're about to engage in the movie's many money shots.

Somewhere in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, as Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) goes through the motions of losing her beloved vampire lover Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) - and, when I mean going through the motions, I mean the stuff most normal teenage girls would do when they get dumped: dive off a cliff into the ocean, take a ride home from a slimy biker looking to get some barely teenage pussy, and squeal like a pig that's about to become someone's Christmas dinner - I had a burning desire to stand up and tell the young, female audience the inconvenient truth about Ms. Swan: that's she's a crazy, clingy woman who needs to get some psychiatric help and find better taste in men!

Consider the evidence: In Twilight she dates a 109 year-old vampire who's relatives and beau want to feast on her flesh. In the second installment to Stephanie Meyer's worldwide best selling books, she's hanging out with a pack of werewolves that could take half her face off if she gets them angry! Speaking of getting angry, there's a scene where Taylor Lautner's Jacob Black tells Alice Cullen, (Ashley Greene), in his "serious" tone, "Don't...make me angry!" Somewhere, Lou Ferrigno is wishing he could have gotten copy rights to his signature line on the TV version of The Incredible Hulk.

For all the talk about the Twilight series being the modern-day epic romance about two star-crossed lovers, New Moon is easily one of the most heartless romantic pictures to come along in a while. Take how Ed and Jacob face off towards the end, both ready to fight for Bella's affections. Who does Bella choose to be with? Surely it would be Jacob, the werewolf who brings her back from her severe bout of depression to a brighter form of melancholy, and all-around good chum, over Edward, the immortal 17 year-old vegan vampire who dumped Bella in the forest and left her there in the fetal position crying her eyes out, right?

Another example is how Bella continues to use Jacob like he's her personal tampon. Knowing that Jacob is good with repairing bikes, she brings him a beat-down motorcycle for him to repair. One might see this sequence as the two bonding. In reality, she just used him to see Edward's phantom pop up when she's acting like an adrenaline junkie, believing that seeing him like this is better than nothing at all. Except the new guy who's beginning to take a liking to you. And Meyer's Bella is supposed to be a positive role model for young girls? I'd rather them emulate Sarah Palin.

In the end, New Moon somehow manages to pull a double-whammy: its as boring and lifeless than the last installment, and damn-near reaches the idiot shallows of this summer's atrocious box-office champion, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The only reason this product-placement of a film avoids that dishonor is that it's unintentionally the funniest piece of filmmaking this year since The Hangover.

Did I forget to mention New Moon has made over $230 million at the box office, and the studio is set to release the next chapter of the Twilight franchise, Eclipse, next summer? God help us all.

1/2 stars out of ****

Week 12 observations in the NFL

2009-12-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

* The Saints are the real McCoy. Any team that can fluster Tom Brady and lay out a convincing ass-kicking on national television must be taken seriously. The irony watching this game became profound to me: Had A.J. Smith stuck it out with Drew Brees, instead of dumping him because his arm injury he suffered at the end of the 2005 season, there would be Super Bowls XLI and XLII titles in San Diego...and possibly rival Belichick's Patriots as the team of the decade. Yes, I said XLII, because watching the way Brees played against the Pats when he was a Charger, and how he played them on Monday night, add to it the endless amounts of firepower San Diego has, from LT to Antonio Gates to Vincent Jackson, Brady would have gone down in the Championship game.

* The Patriots will win the AFC East. They'll probably take the 3rd or 4th seed in the playoff picture. They'll probably embarrass whichever Wild-Card team comes to Foxbrough in January. The praise will be on full blast: the team that no one wants to play in the postseason is back and we'll have the Rivalry of the Decade, Part 2 between Manning and Brady. Yada, yada, yada. Guess what? Not gonna happen. Why? The young, inexperienced secondary will be eaten alive by either the tandems of Carson Palmer/Chad "Ochocinco" or Phillip Rivers/whichever 6-foot wide receiver is open down-field in the Divisional round. Unless Belichick can get the Secondary up to snuff, New England will face an early exit from the playoffs.

* As we pick up our collective jaws off the floor with Vince Young's last-minute heroics against the Arizona Cardinals, the team that went from a shocking 0-6 start under Kerry Collins (the same Kerry Collins that took Young's spot last year and led the Titans to a NFL-best 13-3 record and homeland advantage through the playoffs), to an equally shocking 5-game dream run of a winning streak, and with it, talks of being a contender for the 6th seed in the postseason. As much as I love the story of football's comeback kid and his growing maturity we see in each game, Tennessee won't make the playoffs for two reasons: the Indianapolis Colts and the San Diego Chargers.

The 100 Best Films of the Decade, Part 1

2009-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Here we (almost) are. In 29 days, we're going to celebrate the first passing decade of the new millennium. As I said in September, I am going to part-take in a big endeavor: create my list of the 100 best films of the decade. And I have, with some debate on which movie should be placed where with the top 1-20. Anyways, here's part one of the top 100 films of the decade. Enjoy.

100. Mean Girls (2004) - Before Lindsay Lohan got involved with shots of vodka and blow, she was both a mega-babe and, talented to boot. Probably the best teen satire since Heathers and Clueless, this comedy takes us into the hellish jungle called high school and into the trenches of the warzone between Cady (Lohan), the new girl and the leader of the Plastics, Regina (the deliciously-evil Rachel McAdams). The verbal barbs, confrontations, and catfights bring a whole new meaning to the term, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." It also helps that SNL alumni Tina Fey penned the script with ferocious wit that hits with pin-point accuracy.

99. Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) - In Kill Bill Vol.1, Quentin Tarantino proved he could make an ultra-violent action epic with amazing style. What would he have in store for this time for The Bride (Uma Thurman) as she carries out her quest to kill the DIVAs (the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad) and head honcho Bill (the late and great David Carradine) who gunned her down and left her for dead? A return to Tarantino's bread-and-butter: wickedly delicious dialogue, outrageous humor, and a moving storyline hidden beneath the director's blood-splattering wake. Tarantino's Vol. 2 hits a new watermark in his amazingly short career of ten years (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Vol.1, and Grindhouse: Death Proof) where he takes ever B-level spaghetti western film, and every 1970's exploitation flick and combines it into one exciting time at the movies.

98. 8 Mile (2002) - When we think of Eminem, we see a controversial white rapper who spits lyrics like a machine gun turret. Fast, ferocious, and shoots everything and anything that dare moves, he's up there with Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, and Nas (to name a few) as of the best MC's in rap. Who would have thought we say this about Slim Shady: an acting powerhouse? In 8 Mile, Eminem's Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith holds the screen with the look of a man strapped with explosives, rigged to blow at a moment's notice. The same can be said about this rags-to-riches drama, minus the riches.

97. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) - It's Johnny Depp as the willy, charming, and cunning Captain, Captain Jack Sparrow, savy. What more needs to be said?

96. Collateral (2004) - Jamie Foxx wowed audiences as Ray Charles in the biopic, Ray, but in Michael Mann's stylish and fast-paced thriller about a cold, calculating contract killer (Tom Cruise) making five stops in the sleek and haunting Los Angles nightlife, tagging with him an unsuspecting cab driver named Max, Foxx's performance is nothing short of a revelation, matching step-for-step with Cruise's electrifying Vincent. Using mostly digital cameras to film the City of Angels at dusk, Mann shoots it like the devil and his minions are lurking around every dark alley and every light-gleaming street.

95. Pride and Prejudice (2005) - To quote Mr. Darcy himself, "You have bewitched me, body and soul." By the end of this wonderful and soulful Jane Austin adaptation, you'll fall in love with Keria Knightley's strong-willed presence (and her sharper tongue) as Elizabeth Bennet, Matthew MacFadyen's arrogant and longing Mr. Darcy, and director Joe Wright's keen detail to bring 18th century British romance and playful eroticism to a 21st century female audience.

94. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) - Before Judd Apatow and company took over movie comedy, his claim to fame was the underrated comedy series, Freaks and Geeks. Apatow's Andy Stitzer(the ever-funny Steve Carrel), is a big time geek. He's 40, single, doesn't drink, and has never had intercourse with another woman. His new buddies -- Romney Falco, Paul Rudd, and Seth Rogen make you laugh til it hurts -- spend the rest of the time trying to get him laid, with disastrous results (see a drunken Leslie Mann giving Andy a car-ride from hell). Virgin is drop-dead hilarious and has something few crude guy flicks have: heart and a smart screenplay which fully understands that making a relationship work is much harder that pleasing someone sexually.

93. Doubt (2008) - Watching Oscar winners Philip Seymore Hoffman and Merely Streep trade insults and verbal blows over Sister Aloysius's (Streep) feelings about a song being sung in a school play, to an accusation of Father Flynn (Hoffman) conducting in a suspicious manner with one of the students, is like watching two prize fighters slug it out for 15 rounds without a clear indication of a winner. Without giving the motives of both Flynn and Aloysius away, Doubt leaves you thinking and leaves both characters doubting their own faith.

92. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) - If Homer's The Odyssey took place in the 1930's Depression-era South, had three dumb, but earnest criminals led by George Clooney, trying to return home to his wife, Penny (Holly Hunter), included three Southern bells with a knack for attracting traveling men, a Warren hunting em down and always wearing sunglasses, and discovering a amazing treasure (i'll never tell what it is), it would look something like Joel and Ethan Coen's darkly humorous tale of faith, friendship, and endless amounts of Dapper Dan hair products.

91. Star Trek (2009) - Or: How T.V. genius J.J. Abrams (Lost) resurrected a franchise that was picked bone dry by the buzzards. It's hard not to praise all the actors involved, mainly because all of them had a chance to shine, so I'll point out a few: first to Zachary Quinto for being the best damn Spock since Lenord Nimoy donned the pointy ears; Chris Pine for never losing the swagger and my-way-or-the-highway attitude that made James T. Kirk an awesome U.S.S. Enterprise captain; Karl Urban for being the entertaining medical officer Bones; and Simon Pegg for stealing the show as Scotty. The real hero is Abrams, for bringing excitement, feeling, and a sense of endless wonder back to a franchise drifting into the far reaches of space.

Week 11 observations in the NFL

2009-11-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

* The next time Broncos rookie coach Josh McDaniels spits his game, his team better show up to play. McDaniels walked up to Chargers linebackers Shawne Merriman and Shaun Phillips and engaged in a little pregame smack-talking, saying, "we own you." Big mistake, as he later found out on the first drive when Phillips forces a strip from QB Chris Simms, only to be recovered by Saftey Steven Greggory, his first of two recovery fumbles on the game. That forced fumble was the beginning of San Diego's ass-whipping of the Broncos, 32-3 (yikes!), and the re-capture of the top spot in the AFC West Division. Another helpful tip for the young Belichick protege: when you lose your starting QB to an ankle injury and your backup hasn't played a full game since 2005, you really shouldn't be talking smack about your opponent.

* A show of hands, who here thought Sunday's most exciting game would come from a pair of 1-8 teams? This week's story wasn't about the power shift in the AFC west division, or how Indy and New Orleans are both 10-0, it was about the shootout at Ford Field between QB's Brady Quinn of the Browns and Matt Stanford of the Lions. Both young OB's threw for a combined 8 touchdowns and passed for a combined 726 passing yards. A few things we've learned in this game:
a.) both Quinn and Stafford have great potential. If these two can come out swinging like this later on down the road (and with the right set of offensive weapons), look out. These two would be scary to face every Sunday.
b.) despite a 2-8 record, Detroit fans finally have something to cheer about. For the first time in a long time, the Lions come out with a dramatic win, instead of coming out with another moral-crushing loss....one that will be toked about for months, even years, to come in a city that has become the poster child for how bleak the American economy is right now.
c.) Eric Mangini, for all intensive purposes, is probably the biggest bust to come out of the NFL since Ryan Leaf of my San Diego Chargers.

* Every year, there always seems to be a football team that catches lightning in a bottle and becomes the Cinderella story of the NFL. Last year, it was Kurt Warner and the Arizona Cardinals and their amazing postseason run that got them to Super Bowl XLIII. This year, its the re-emergence of Vince Young and the Titans, a team under backup Kerry Collins, wound up clinching the no.1 spot in the AFC playoff seeding last year, only to star a shocking 0-6 this season. After last night's win over the Houston Texans, Tennessee has won four straight games since Young was re-activated, and could possibly shock everyone and make a playoff push. Can they do the impossible and win out to make it a real horse race in the AFC Wild Card race? Don't bet on it. Next week, they face last year's NFC Champs Arizona (7-3), and the the unbeaten Colts (10-0) the week after. In fact, four of the remaining six games in the regular season, the opposing teams are playoff bound with five wins or more (Cardinals, Colts, Dolphins and Chargers). A tall order to fill for Young and RB Chris Johnson, and one I highly doubt they can overcome.

I guess this was unaviodable...(Redux)

2009-11-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

Tonight all across the country, the multiplex will be overun with tweens, high school girls, and mothers who dig vampires and werewolves who are more Calvin Kline-type models than they are, you know - vampires and werewolves. That's right, the next chapter in the Twilight series, New Moon, is set to make some serious box office gold this weekend and nothing I, or any of the critics who say the film flat out tanks, will matter. Much like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, this movie is critic-proof. For two hours and ten minutes, young girls will be staring at studly eye candy (with extra sappy teenage romance/angst and a splash of vampire and werewolf action thrown in).

Am I annoyed about hearing/reading about the relentless parade of movie news and what not? You bet. Do I really give a rat's ass about the rumors of lead actors Kirsten Stewart and teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson dating? Hardly. Am I going to be happy when this franchise joins with Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and High School Musical in the trash bin of flash-in-the-pan pop culture hits of the moment? Hell, I probably won't even remember The Twilight Saga, ten years from now (I hope). To all the Twilight-haters out there (and yes, I am a proud member of that group): Let the sparkling vampires have their moment, and allow all the pubescent tweeners mind-frig themselves silly to Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Later on in life, they'll come to the same conclusion that the rest of us knew right off the bat: 'God, that franchise sucked!'

Late Edit: When teen queen Miley Cyrus thinks the Twilight franchise sucks, you know it's only a matter of time before all the tweeners (i.e. the most fickle demographic on Gods green earth) wake up and get wise to the con job.

In the midst of tragedy, rationality must prevail

2009-11-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

The events that unfolded at Ft. Hood in Texas are no doubt, a tragedy. We now know the culprit, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39 year-old Army psychiatrist shot and killed 13 men in uniform and injured over 30 others. We also know that various U.S. government agencies knew this guy was off, but sat on their asses anyway. And just today, President Obama made the trip to talk to and grieve with the families of the Ft. Hood victims. But one huge aspect that, I feel, is being lost in the new cycle, is how some people are desperately trying to, in the face of great loss, quell the backlash the Muslim community is receiving because of one extremist's actions. General George Casey's voice on the subject matter, to me, spoke volumes on Meet The Press.

"I think those concerns are real, and I will tell you, David, that they are fueled based by the speculation based on anecdotal evidence that people are presenting. I think we have to be very careful with that. Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength and as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."

Days after the shooting, one extremist's actions have ignited fear-mongering and hatred against Muslims in the military and the faith in general.

Let's be mindful of one thing: This man's action's are both deplorable and condemnable, but his violet act does not speak for the vast ethos of the Muslim population and the Islamic faith, nor should it be taken that way in any context. These are sad and mournful times, but we must resist the worse angels of our nature to easily paint the bastard with the same brush of the normal, moderate people who practice the religion of Islam. To do so would only weaken our nation's resolve and creates hostilities between our own citizens.

As Chris Martin sang once before: "Give me love over lies / love over lies."

It's A Brand-New Ballgame In the AFC West

2009-11-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

Let's rewind the clocks back to three weeks ago today: Denver just asserted itself as the real McCoy in the AFC by ripping San Diego a new one on Monday Night Football, 34-23. The Broncos were sitting mighty high at 6-0 and under rookie coach Josh McDaniel and red-hot QB Kyle Orton, the message was simple: there's a new, emerging elite unit in the AFC.

The Chargers, on the other hand,were on the outside looking in at 2-3, and thanks to a slew of injuries(an 8-week ankle injury to Pro-Bowl center Nick Hardwick in Week 1 vs OAK, a season-ending injury to nose tackle Jamal Williams among the hardest hit to SD), a lackluster O-line and D-line, and a laughable linebacking corp, looked like they were all but fucked; a team that was in complete disarray, and no answers in sight.

It looked like, once again, Norv Turner would have been in the unemployment line come the end of the season, along with General Manager A.J. Smith, Defensive Coordinator Ron Rivera, Shawne Merriman, Antonio Cromarte, and whoever else's heads were waiting on the guillotine. Fans (myself included) were calling for a near-cleansing of the Chargers organization, and for Bill Cower and/or Tony Dungy to come out of retirement.

How quickly the tide can turn in football. In three weeks, you could be the team to beat in the Super Bowl, and five weeks later, the analysts would even question if your team could make the wild-card.

After Monday night's 28-10 ass-kicking from the World-Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver's got a new problem in the form of a three-time, AFC West powerhouse San Diego team, and from the looks of Philip Rivers, Vincent Jackson, Darren Sproles, Antonio Gates, Shawn Phillips, and Eric Weddle, they're ready to take back what is theirs. Did I mention that in the span of three weeks the Chargers have gone 3-0, including finally beating a team with a winning record, and that "Lights Out" Merriman is back?

Should San Diego come out with ferosity against the Philidelphia Eagles on Sunday and win, next week's matchup between the Chargers and Broncos will be a no-holds barred slugfest to decide who will take the AFC West crown on national television.

Three weeks to the day, the AFC race was all but wrapped up. As the saying goes (and it should be applied to footbal, how sad that we fans keep forgetting), "it ain't over, til' it's over."

Daily KOS founder calls out GOP chickenhawk

2009-11-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the liberal website Daily KOS.com, and military veteran slams former GOP congressman Tom Tancredo on the Friday edition of "The Ed Show" with David Shuster filling in for Ed Schultz. Both men were brought in to discuss yesterday's Tea Party Rally that was held on the Capital building and some of the over-the-line signs that were used.

The debate became heated when Moulitsas defended health care reform when stating that the U.S. military uses government-run health insurance, with Tancredo stepping in and saying that he knew veterans who don't like their health insurance, and desire to switch to a voucher system and buy into a private insurance plan. Here's the clip:

Tom got mad when Markos called him out as a conservative who talks a big game, but never putting his money where his mouth was when it came to the military, and stormed off in the middle of the interview. Turns out that part was true.

As a Republican student activist, Tancredo spoke out in favor of the Vietnam War. After graduating from the University of Northern Colorado in June 1969, he became eligible to serve in Vietnam. Tancredo said he went for his physical, telling doctors he'd been treated for depression, and eventually got a "1-Y" deferment.

At any rate, great job from Markos for calling on this guy's BS.

It's almost the holidays

2009-11-07T00:53:00.000-08:00

For everyone it means it's time to dig into our wallets and spend, spend, spend for our loved ones, make plans for Thanksgiving and X-Mas dinner, etc.

For some, it means getting into the holiday spirit by means of the usual traditions, like ice skating, or going door-to-door singing Christmas carols, or nuzzling by the fire with family, friends, or lovers.

For me, it's the most depressing time of the year.

Depressing, because its hard to get into the spirit of the season, and when I can't, I get even more depressed. I constantly replay, in my head, all the missed opportunities I should have taken if I wasn't so scared; I keep playing the "what if..." game repeatedly, and wonder if this will be the year where i'll have to go on some sort of anti-depressant medication.

For me, attending annual solstice parties result in me isolating myself from everyone else so I don't bring down their jolly good time.

X-Mas songs like "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," and "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," are replaced by Radiohead's "How To Disappear Completely," and Weezer's "The World Has Turned And Left Me Here" as carols.

Winter nights where people flock to ice rinks or to other parties to do holiday stuff become me sitting in my room, or in my dad's office, wondering when this mood of feeling like complete shit will pass.

Its the most wonderful time of the year....except for me.

And, like a train that's never late to its destination, it'll be on the platform on the dot, never early never late, but always on the dot.

Fuck.

Compassionate conservatism rearing its ugly head

2009-10-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Some of you may already know about the horrific and shocking tale of Jamie Leigh Jones, but for those who don't, here's a bit of info on her story.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Yes, you read that right. The act itself, as it turns out, was a warm-up compared to what comes next in the story.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.

Unfortunately, it gets more insulting. Under the Bush Department (lack) of Justice, her case was largely swept under the rug, and left for one group to settle the matter...Halliburton/KBR.

Jones is now trying to proceed with the case in civil court, but KBR is pushing for it to be heard in “private arbitration,” without a “public record or transcript.” Halliburton has “won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.”

Under a mandatory arbitration clause, if something happens to you - like the sexual abuse of Leigh Jones - under contract, you cannot sue the company for damages. Turns out its not just Halliburton that makes an arbitration clause mandatory in the workplace.

Hooters • Applebee's • KFC • Friendly Ice Cream Corporation • Circuit City • Neiman Marcus • Nordstrom • Hallmark Cards • Merrill Lynch • Citigroup • First usa • Ameriquest • Discover • Blue Cross Blue Shield • Aetna • Kaiser Permanente • AT&T • Ford • Daimler AG • Toyota • Clear Channel • General Electric • Halliburton • Bechtel • Rent-a-Center

Thankfully, last month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor over Halliburton, stating that her injuries were not covered by the arbitration clause.

Now what does this heartbreaking example of unchecked corporate accountability and another dark example of life under the Bush/Cheney era have to do with 'compassionate conservatism' rearing its ugly head yet again?

Junior Senator Al Franken of Minnesota introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would make it illegal for defense contractors to stop employees from taking sexual abuse, battery, and harassment up to court, in other words, to make sure that we don't have to hear about another Jamie Leigh Jones in the news. You would beleive in the Senate, that a bill that would stop defense contractors from restricting employees from pressing charges because of rape or assault, would be an instant, no-brainer, unanimous 'yes' vote, right?

The bill did pass alright....by a vote of 68-30.

30 Senators basically defended rapists.

And these 30 Senators were, drumrolls please.......

Old, white, Republicans lawmakers. Here's the full list of the Senators who had the audacity to vote no.

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

I'm not one to wish ill will on others, but in this case, I hope there's a special place in Hell for the people who have decided to place corporate interests over those of rape victims.

Jon Stewart does a great job taking these partisan hacks to task on their actions on last night's The Daily Show.

In addition to being the Party of unchecked corporate greed, torture, anti-minorities, obstructionists, and the angry, racist Southern white voter, the GOP can add defender of rape victims to that shameful list.

Again, how the hell can honestly look at these qualities, and still vote Republican?

Homosexuality? A lifestyle choice! Your religious views? You're born with it!

2009-10-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Your skin color. The color of your eyes. Your ethnic background(s). These three things, are among a long list of other traits of things that not one person can change about themselves. What you wear, what you eat, what musical tastes you have, etc. are among an even longer list of things that everyone can change, or changes dramatically, thought the course of a lifetime. In the ever-raging debate on equal rights for the gay/lesbian community, one of the arguments I cannot, for the life of me, understand, is the argument that gay men and women have chosen to be with the same sex.

Really? One chooses to be sexually attracted to the same sex overnight? It's not just a biological wiring that one person might have, but a choice, much like a person switching from Vans to Converse shoes?

This bullshit argument has raised a notch today with House Minority Leader John Boehner of Texas explaining his opposition to hate crime protections for the gay community that's being debated on Capitol Hill, and it's a bigger load of BS than the argument I just mentioned.

Last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner objected to House passage of a bill that would expand hate crime laws and make it a federal crime to assault people on the basis of their sexual orientation.....

In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics."

It should be noted that the current law does not include gender, though the expanded legislation would cover gender as well as sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

"He does not support adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes," Smith continued.

Boehner's position, then, appears to be grounded in the notion that immutable characteristics should be protected under hate crimes laws. And while religion is an immutable characteristic, his office suggests, sexual orientation is not.

That's right. The House Minority Leader is convinced that one's religious background is an immutable characteristic, as opposed to being physically attracted to the same sex.

My dad was raised in a Baptist-Christian household, along with my mom. I was raised in the same religious household as my parents were. Because of those two factors, by Bohner's logic, I should be a Christian. Yet, I consider myself to being agnostic. How does Boehner explain that? Furthermore, how does he not think to himself and say aloud, "Well...i'm a 100% dumbass?"

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize? Boooooooo!

2009-10-10T22:41:00.000-07:00

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 24 hrs., you have already heard the news that President Obama, just nine months into his young presidency, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. With this award, he joins a very select group of former U.S. Presidents (Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919, and Jimmy Carter in 2002) who have been awarded the Peace Prize.

I've heard the talk about the campfire (I, myself, have ashed the same question):
"What's he done this early on to deserve this award?"
"The nominations for the award end on February 2, Obama had been in office for a week and a half! What gives?"
"There are more people out there who have actually made accomplishments in steering the world towards peace, so why did they get the shaft?"

First, the Nobel Peace Prize is usually awarded, not for one's accomplishments, but for one's actions to bring about peace in the world, and to highlight the causes of the times. For example, take all the many people have won it for trying to bring about peace in the Middle East (Carter, Yasser Arafat, Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat of Egypt etc.), and we're no closer to having Israelis and Palestinians lay down their past grudges and weapons and work together to coexist in the same strip of land they are fighting and dying for.
Second, what ha Obama done to win this award? Here's what the people who give out the award, have to say:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

In other words, he's not Bush Jr., where his idea of diplomacy could be equated to playing a game of Cowboys and Indians, and his attitude towards human rights were like that of his feeling about the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend - 'who gives a flying fuck, i'm the motherfucking President of the United States bitches, so I can do whatever the fuck I want, so suck on it, you damn foreigners!'

That's why he won the award. And it was well earned.

And one would beleive that everyone would feel a sense of pride that a sitting U.S. President has won this award, and set aside scoring political and partisan points with their respective base and congratulate the President on his achievement, right?

Well, with the Obstructionist Party...uh, I meant the Party of No...whoops, I mean the party that caters to un-Reconstructed Southern crackers...Ok, this isn't coming out right, let's rewind and start over...

It turns out with the Republican party, partisanship doesn't take a vacation (nailed it this time!).

Instead of going into some rant against the GOPricks, I'll just let one of my favorite songs from the British alternative rock band, Radiohead, express what I want to say in song.

I don't know why you bother
Nothing's ever good enough for you.
I was there, it wasn't like that.
You've come here just to start a fight
You had to piss on our parade,
You had to shred our big day
You had to ruin it for all concerned,
In a drunken punch-up at a wedding, yeah!

Hypocrite, opportunist
Don't infect me with your poison
A bully in a china shop
When I turn 'round you stay frozen to the spot
You had the pointless snide remarks
Of hammerheaded sharks
The pot will call the kettle black
It's a drunken punch-up at a wedding, yeah!

For a party that loves to hold claims on putting country first, they're like the kid who's mad that his prom date stood him up, so he pisses in the glass punch bowl to make everyone else's night miserable, because as the saying goes, "misery loves company."

The Ones That Mattered:The 100 best films of the decade

2009-09-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

This decade brought us historical triumph and unimaginable tragedy. It has brought out two wars in the Middle East, the end of the second-longest dry streak in sports history, the absolute worst in our elected officials, and the hope and dreams of what we can accomplish from others, among other things. We have seen the rise of the New Media from The Huffington Post and social networking sites, and the free-fall of the printing press.

It has also given us an amazing ride at the movies. And I bet a few handfuls of them have moved, shaped, and entertained you in ways that still stay with you. Over the next few months, I'll be engaging a big undertaking: the 100 best films from this decade. Stay tuned....

What's going on in my head?

2009-09-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

When's the last time i've posted anything even remotely personal? Shit, even I don't remember. But I guess it can't hurt to start now, right?

I'm five weeks into my sophomore year at Southwestern Community College. After next year, I plan to transfer. Where? I don't know yet.

Wherever I go, the inevitable will occur for me:

Finding a job.

Getting a driver's license.

Living in a dorm.

Learning how to live with myself.

I don't mean to sound like some stereotypical lazy college student kicking it with mom and dad, but I have a bad streak of being the world's biggest procrastinator. Its an annoying habit i'm trying to break out of. I welcome the fact of making my own money and going wherever I want and not being dependent on public transportation, or seeing a new change in scenery other than America's Finest City....It doesn't help that i'm dead scared.

I might as well be trapped in limbo....knowing that I must leave the nest, but too fucking afraid to learn to fly away. It also doesn't help that I'm still carrying baggage from high school....the angst about not fitting in with my peers, the issues of self-confidence....that same old song-and-dance.

Is this normal for any young person to be going through?

I guess this was unavoidable...

2009-09-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Forget Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, or the biopic Amelie starring Hilary Swank gunning for her third Oscar, or even James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar. This fall, the only movie that will have everyone talking isn't a blockbuster holiday film, or a potential Oscar-contender...it'll be The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Come the middle of October til the midnight release across the country, we'll be living in a Twilight-themed pop culture world with debates ranging from comparing the Twilight series to the Harry Potter franchise, to who's a bigger hottie: Robert Pattinson who plays Edward Cullen or Taylor Lautner who plays Jacob Black. Fans (made up of mostly of middle-school girls and high school girls) of the series will make the second installment a smash hit at the box office when it debuts November 20, while the anti-Twilighters will bash this film to no end.

There's no escaping this reality. And since we'll be engulfed in that world, I decided to pop my Twilight cherry and watch the film on You Tube.

That's right. I was a Twilight-virgin. Before watching the first movie, my only knowledge of the Twilight franchise were the following:
A.) Girls loved the books and the movie (it grossed $191 million in 2008).
B.) Guys loathed it.
C.) It was based on the best-selling vampire novels written by Stephanie Meyers.
D.) Pattinson, who's biggest role before playing Edward was Hogwarts co-champion Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire became the object of every American teenage girl's desires afterward.

At some point though the film, when young Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) learns that the mysterious and handsome Edward Cullen (Pattinson) is a vegetarian vampire (instead of feasting on humans, they hunt animal blood; think Bruce and his shark chums in Finding Nemo), and that her scent makes his mouth water for her flesh, Edward utters the words i'm sure every hopelessly romantic girl longs to hear from their Prince Charming (or Edward in this case): "Your like my own personal brand of heroin."

I have never laughed that hard because of a movie line before...and i've watched The 40 Year-Old Virgin, American Pie, and other time capsule comedies. Unknowingly to me, that would be the only time I would get a rise out of Twilight. I fully understand this franchise is nothing more than a pop-culture product of the moment and that this is not supposed to be catered to people like me. But I cannot forgive just how dreadfully boring and shamelessly cliched the film is.

In Twilight, everyone sulks. The kids sulk at school and on the beach. The divorced father sulks while on the job and at the local diner. Even the vampires sulk. Now i've done my share of teenage sulking and angst, but i've found ways to snap out of it and enjoy my imperfect life, but this level of angst and moping was really unbelievable. You debate to yourself who's more alive: the vampires or the townspeople, but I guess when you live in Forks, Washington; sulking is probably the town's pastime. Swan moves to this sleepy town after mom moves with her new minor league playing boyfriend to sunny and lively Florida, after living in Arizona for most of her life (you'd think at least she'd have some sort of a golden tan, right?)

I'm getting bored explaining this movie, so let me fast forward about the grizzly murders the town is witnessing because even that is about as exciting as watching paint dry (I know this a PG-13 movie, but is a showing a little blood and action too much to ask?!) and how Bella has fallen madly in love with Edward even though he wants nothing more than to have her like a fat kid pines for a double fudge chocolate cake, and let me get right to the point: Twilight successfully drags on and on like this for two hours without having one exciting moment that shakes or frightens you. And don't even get me started on the vampires playing a round of baseball.

Director Catherine Hardwicke (brilliant in her 2003 debut, Thirteen) faithfully captures the essence of Meyer's novel of young, forbidden love, which therein lies the problem: there's no spark between Stewart or Pattinson, no sense of desire or sexual want with Bella and Edward. It's just these two, along with the Cullen clan, moping and posing together like Abercrombie & Fitch models.

Go ahead. Let the teenage girls of America pay money to drool and frig themselves in the cinemas to Edward and Jacob. In fifteen years, the Twilight-craze will take its rightful place alongside High School Musical, Camp Rock, the Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, Pokemon, and the emo culture in the trash bin of history; a flash-in-the pan, but with sparkling vampires.

And one other thing: Vampires do not fucking sparkle in daylight!!

* star out of ****

xxx stars are people, too

2009-09-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

You've gotta check out this blog: Becoming Jennie.

Its about an ex-adult film star's road from sex addict to sobriety.

Not much of a point to this blog, but to display an interesting person's daily struggle to walk the straight-and-narrow.

That, and to continually be amazed about how interesting people can be.

"You Lie!" Or: The new low in this country's national discuorse - and how to recapture our naton's sanity

2009-09-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

I've gotta give Pres. Obama credit: He's going to stick to coaxing the better angels of America's nature and trust that there are some lawmakers on the other side of the aisle. I personally don't believe that the current batch of Republican lawmakers have any interest in working with him on health care reform, but I have been wrong before, and if this is the road Obama wants to go down on, then i'll trust that he and his administration knows what they're doing.

Having said that, Let me get right to the point of this new post: By now, mostly all of you know who this idiot is on the left: Joe Wilson the representative of South Carolina's 2nd district; also known as the man who shouted out "You lie!" during the middle of the President's Address to Congress.

Two thought were going through my mind when Joe opened his big trap: 1. "This is an Address to Congress, not a fucking town hall meeting!", and 2. "This character's gonna become a martyr for the conservative movement across the nation." And they didn't disappoint.

The reason why Wilson rudely interrupted the President's speech? Obama said in his speech that illegal immigrants would not qualify for credits for the health care plan. And he was right.

The President's seemingly simple statement that "the reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally" is not hard to check. In the Senate Finance Committee's working framework for a health plan, which Obama's speech seemed most to mimic, there is the line, "No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health care tax credits." Similarly, the major health-care-reform bill to pass out of committee in the House, H.R. 3200, contains Section 246, which is called "NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS."

So not only did Joe rudely interrupt the Commander-in-Chief, he himself, lied about calling Obama a liar!

But i'm dead certain Joe knew that going in. In the age of Obama and the changing of the nation, facts and well-reasoned debates have taken a backside to which any ignorant relic of the Jim Crow era can grab a soapbox and a bullhorn and yell for all to hear, "OBAMA IS A GOD-DAMN SOCIALIST!" Instead of letting cooler heard prevail, we have a cynical, narcissistic talk show host in Glenn Beck who rises to power by making outrageous and out-of-left-field claims about the events of the day and mis-characterizing events and news-makers to fit Rupert Murdock's - and a party's - agenda; and shameless political opportunists like Sarah Palin, exploiting her youngest child to scare Americans by saying that her down-syndrome baby, Trig, will be at the alter of a group of bureaucrats who'll decide if he lives or dies; and disagreements over policy have turned into shouting matches at town-hall meetings. To put it simply: in this age, down has become the new up.

But as I look upon this sad state of discourse in American politics, and in America itself, I come to remember which matters the most: we have been down this road before. From woman's suffrage, to civil and voting rights; from the formation of unions to the formation of Social Security, we've had spirited debates about these issues, we have fought over the issues, some had shed their own blood to have their ideals realized, and many have tried to delay to make the changes necessary to strengthen our nation and to move our country forward. But, in the end, we passed Social Security, formed the unions, gave minorities and women the right to vote, strengthened anti-discrimination laws in the workplace and in businesses, and we are a better country because we met these challenges head on, despite the opposition, the cynicism, and challenges that threatened to intimidate our citizens.

We have been down this road before. We can (finally) pass health care reform if we allow ourselves to ignore the charlatans and the naysayers, and go forth with a determination that we can, and will reform our broken system for the betterment of our country, and for the next generation not yet born.

Allow me to quote U2 frontman Bono: "We're one, but we're not the same / we've got to carry each other, carry each other."

Pres. Obama to address nation's children on the first day of school? Don't tread on our children, you socialist bastard!

2009-09-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, kids all over the nation will be going back to school; grumbling, tired, wishing the summer that was 2009 didn't have to end on Labor Day. Those of us who remember the first day of school might remember the formula: say hi to all the friends who we've missed because they were traveling for the summer, get acquainted with new students, go to our new classrooms, meet our new teachers, watch the 44th President of the United States give an address to us about the importance of an education and persevering in school, learn the classroom rules (which is mostly a waste of time, because the classroom etiquette is the same in pretty much as the classrooms)...Say what now?!

Yes, President Obama will be talking the children, first thing tomorrow morning.

But some believe Obama's speech to the younglings is nothing more than a dastardly plot to force his liberal, Marxist agenda down the throats of America's youth, thus bringing us one step closer to a socialist nation! If this is allowed to happen, we'll be telling our grandchildren what real freedom in America used to be like...if we're still allowed to talk about what freedom used to be at all...

So what are these proud, non-backward thinking, and most certainly non-racist patriots going to do? I'll tell ya what these fine, angry, overweight rednecks won't do! They're not going to try and make a non-controversial act become a polarized spectacle that further embarrasses the political discourse in this country and makes the conservative base of the GOP look like they deserve to be in a mental asylum, rather than a viable political party! Wait a minute...

The public-school systems in both Collier and next-door Lee counties, a conservative pocket in southwest Florida that includes Naples, announced on Thursday, Sept. 3, that their students won't be seeing Obama's speech..."We tend to be very conservative here," says Dean. "This President is extremely liberal, and we worry that he's leading us to socialism."

School districts in at least half a dozen other states have made similar decisions not to air the President's talk. In one of those states, Minnesota, Republican governor and possible 2012 presidential aspirant Tim Pawlenty called the speech "uninvited" and voiced concerns about its "content and motive."

In Oklahoma, state senator Steve Russell rivaled Florida's Greer for hyperbole, calling Obama's talk "something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

Nope! No blatant use of exploiting people's misguided fears and intolerance to further divide and make it into another us-vs-them debate! After all, the Republicans are only looking out for the children.
More from the article:

Asked if the Collier school district would have made the same ruling about webcast "logistics" if Obama's Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, had proposed making a similar speech to U.S. students, a spokesman for Thompson told TIME, "exactly." But Dean calls it "a moot question" because "I don't think President Bush would have ever done it. He understood that this sort of thing starts in the home." But when reminded that Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, broadcast a similar speech to the nation's pupils, Dean says, "That was different. It was, if I remember, largely a say-no-to-drugs speech."

See? Pappy Bush was doing it to tell the children to not use drugs, while Obama is indoctrinating the kids the wicked ideas of taking personal responsibility for themselves in school! It's not like the GOP would ever preach that kind of leftist crap onto ordinary American citizens!

This whole episode would be side-splitting hilarious, if it weren't for the fact that the party that loves to stake claims on patriotism, Christianity, and putting country first, from the moment Pres. Obama stepped foot in the Oval Office eight months ago, have been anything but what they claim the GOP is all about. The Republicans are about one thing these days: bringing the president down by any - and all means - necessary, and if that means the country goes down with Barack Obama, so be it. As long it gets them back into power, the ends will always justify the means. Its one thing to be "the loyal opposition." It's another thing altogether to scare the base into doing the party's dirty work.

Shawne Merriman, what the fuck?!

2009-09-07T10:56:00.000-07:00

Seriously, dude.

SAN DIEGO (AP)—San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman(notes) was arrested Sunday and accused of choking and restraining his girlfriend, reality TV star Tila Tequila, as she tried to leave his Southern California home.

Tequila, 27, signed a citizen’s arrest warrant, charging Merriman with battery and false imprisonment, San Diego County Sheriff’s Lt. Gary Steadman said.

Deputies responded about 3:45 a.m. to Merriman’s house in Poway, north of San Diego, after a woman called to say she was choked by the player and physically restrained when she had tried to leave, according to a Sheriff’s Department statement.

Merriman, 25, was taken into custody. Authorities declined to say whether he had posted bail or been released, pending an afternoon news conference.

Tequila was taken to a hospital. Her condition was not immediately available.

Tequila, whose real name is Tila Nguyen, is best known for “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,” which ran for two seasons on MTV. The bisexual dating show featured men and women vying for Tequila’s affections. She has also modeled for Playboy and other men’s magazines.

Scott E. Leemon, an attorney for Tequila, said in a statement that neither she nor her representatives would comment publicly on the incident.

Merriman’s agent, Tom Condon, said he hadn’t heard about the arrest when contacted by The Associated Press.

Chargers general manager A.J. Smith didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

Great, just what the Bolts need before heading into Week 1.
I don't know what disgust me more: the fact that #56 put himself, and the team, in a bad situation before the opener, or the fact that the fans are blaming his girlfriend for this mess. Tila Tequila may be some skanky reality TV whore, but ti's never alright say stuff like 'choke that fukkkin ho!' or 'beat that bitch' or whatever. Come on, Charger Nation, we're better than that.

Shut the fuck up, Mr. West!

2009-09-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

I love Kanye West. The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation are all some of the best rap albums put out this decade, but after watching this interview, he just needs to shut the fuck up and come back down to earth.

Godspeed, Ted Kennedy

2009-08-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

Edward "Ted" Kennedy 1931-2009

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family's political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, has died at age 77.

Known as the "liberal lion of the Senate," Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor -- by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, known as Ted or Teddy, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent a successful brain surgery soon after that. But his health continued to deteriorate, and Kennedy suffered a seizure while attending the luncheon following President Barack

This really sucks. America, the Democrats, and liberals everywhere have lost a great man tonight. I will remember the man and his work simply by these words alone:

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."

Rest in peace, Lion of the Senate.

When They're Full of Shit, Do They Know It?

2009-08-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

And the old joke about politicians goes like this: "How do you know when a politician is lying? When his lips begin to move!" This week, two GOP politicos, one we all thought we would never see again, the other is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee have both resorted to the tried-and-proven scare tactics the Republicans have become masters at.

Former Governor Sarah Palin began with the "death panel" talking point last week, when she claimed President Obama's health care plan would kill her special needs baby, Trig.

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

I've gotta hand it to Sarah on this one. Her bullshit became the right-wing's talking point of the week. Too bad it isn't even remotely true.

Q: Does the health care legislation bill promote "mercy killing," or euthanasia?

A: No.

Q: Then what's all the fuss about?

A: A provision in the House bill written by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills, making a close relative or a trusted friend your health care proxy, learning about hospice as an option for the terminally ill, and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort.

The sessions would be covered every five years, more frequently if someone is gravely ill.

Now, I know what you're gonna say: 'What an idiot that woman is!' or, 'Doesn't that dumb bitch even read the fucking bill that was presented in the House!?' or even, 'How could the people of Alaska voted for that manipulative woman?'. Sure, all three might be the appropriate thing to say and it makes us feel better about ourselves, but it's too simple, and you fall into the trap. Mrs. Palin is part of the reason why I detest the current leadership that passes in the GOP - people like her are the true cynics; she knows better than to make this false accusation, but she also knows that her base - the ignorant, the narrow-minded, the people who hate everything that doesn't fit into their world view - don't know any better, so she'll lie and yell and whip up false outrage to defeat our country's real chance to reform a broken health care system that cares more about making a profit than taking care of the family of a little boy that has asthma and pray that he has a few flare-ups as humanly possible because they might have to take out their second mortgage to pay for another hospital visit. And hey, if that means she has trot out and exploit her baby to do it (which she did), she'll practicably turn baby Trig into a human puppet.

But as the title suggests, I've come to learn that the former Governor of Alaska is completely full of shit. Palin, as it turns out, was for these supposed "death panels" before she was against it....kind of like when she said "Thanks, but no thanks to that bridge to nowhere," when in reality, she already said yes to it during her term!

WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. [...]

WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.

Now onto Chuck Grassley. He also latched onto the talking point this week, after Obama praised his willingness to work with him on health care reform during a town hall meeting this week.

"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

But the Chuck Grassley in 2003 would probably scold the Grassley currently riding on his high horse now, along with 42 colleagues from the Senate during that time. You guessed it, he voted for those so-called "death panels" in the '03 version of the Medicare drug bill.

So, Mrs. Palin and Mr. Grassley: when you two are full of shit, do you both know it?

July Nights

2009-08-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

Movie, best: I've never said this about any Harry Potter movie (even with Cuaron's Prisoner of Azkaban) but the film's sixth installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, has me saying the following: a sure-fire contender for Best Picture come award season. Yes, I mentioned a Harry Potter movie and Oscar in the same sentence, but this isn't the rantings of a Potter-head. Watch cinematographer Bruno Debonnel work pure magic with light and scenery that captures the bleak atmosphere surrounding Hogwarts, the magical world and Harry's as well; listen to composer Nicholas Hooper's haunting and achingly beautiful score; Look at how visual effects supervisors Tim Burke and Tim Alexander use eye-popping and gorgeous visual effects to contribute to telling the story and not merely using the imagery as a crutch to lean on; witness Tom Felton dig deep to find sympathy for the devil's servant in Draco Malfoy in which he is recited by Lord Voldemort to perform an act that will break his soul, or the madness and seductive nature of Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, or Alan Rickman diving into Severus Snape to the point where even his facial expressions and body gestures do more acting than any line of dialogue he can deliver; then tell me how this knockout of a fantasy drama doesn't deserve a piece of the Oscar pie.

**** stars out of ****

Comedy, laugh-out-loud: When it came to balls-to-the-wall, outrageous and downright nasty comedy, Sasha Baron Cohen is king with Bruno, the newest mocumentary from the Larry Charles, the man who helmed Borat in 2006. This time, Cohen is playing Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion critic looking for his fifteen minutes of screen time in America. Critics have said that it's like an old dog trying to wow everyone with the same trick. Fair point: Bruno is just following the same routine as Borat, which is to expose the dark side of American culture while being as outrageous and humanly possible, leaving any and all decency to the wayside. But who's to say that it's still not jaw-droppingly hilarious and an amazing trick?

***1/2 stars out of ****

Show saver, most needed: Confession: I loathe American horror movies these days. It's all formulaic, slasher/torture porn and no fun. Orphan is basically, a formulaic slasher thriller, but with one key that most horror films don't have: a villain that's completely deranged that leaves an impression on you. Ladies and gentlemen, I give Ester, easily the creepiest and baddest evil kid around the block since Damien. Isabelle Fuhrman plays the seemingly sweet and innocent nine year-old Russian orphan with menace. Her sickly smile alone can give you the willies and will have you screaming at Mom (Vera Farminga) and Dad (Peter Sarsgaard) for not realizing that Ester is one crazy bitch.

Performances, best and baddest edition: As I mentioned above, Fuhrman is delightfully evil in Orphan, but so was Bonham Carter as the sexy, demented second-in-command Bellatrix Lestrange in Half-Blood Prince. Also let me add Tom Felton's haunting work as Death Eater in-training Draco Malfoy, Alan Rickman as the sneering, shadow-dweller of Hogwarts, Severus Snape, and Adam Sandler as George Simmons, an asshole comedian with terminal cancer in Funny People. This July, my attention was on the bad guys, and boy they were so good to watch.

Hypocrite...Opportunist, Part II

2009-08-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Ah, Sarah Palin.

I thought with your departure from the job of Governor of the great state of Alaska, we would no longer have to put up with your incoherent speeches about putting lipstick on a pitbull, or watch you embarrass yourself in front of Katie Couric (though the endless supply of jokes and spot-on impersonations of you from Tina Fey would be missed greatly).

Just as we believed that you were out of our lives, you suddenly jumped right back into ours, only this time you gave us a warning about what the future of Obama's health care bill might entail not only for baby Trig, but for every child who has Down Syndrome.

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Besides the fact that the former Governor of Alaska is spouting off the standard right-wing talking points that are trying to kill our chance of revamping a fucked-up system that places money and profit over human life itself for the first time in 15 years, Palin sinks to a brand-new low here.

Mrs. Palin, during your final speech to the people of Alaska, you asked the media to lay off your family, and the family of the newly appointed Governor. And yet, weeks later, you're exploiting your own child to inject fear of the president's health care bill. Your own flesh and blood! Doesn't that bother you in the slightest?

In the immortal words of Thom Yorke: "Hypocrite / Opportunist / Don't infect me with your poison."

Barack Obama is a lucky bastard today

2009-07-31T15:02:00.001-07:00

His team, the White Sox, have acquired one of the best pitchers in the National League.

Jake Peavy(notes), disabled since mid-June and already once having rejected a trade to the Chicago White Sox, was traded in the moments before the trading deadline to the White Sox for four players.

In return for the 2007 Cy Young Award winner the Padres received four pitchers – lefties Clayton Richard and Aaron Poreda and righties Dexter Carter and Adam Russell.

The Sox are just 2 1/2 our of the AL Central Race. With Peavy, They've got more than a damn good shot of taking out Detroit for the top spot.

A big old fuck you to VP Sandy Alderson and Owner John Moores. These two assholes let this team burn when they kicked Bruce Bochy to the curb in 2006....after they won the NL West for a second straight year.

I hope you're happy, fuckers.....cause you two (if there's any justice left in this world) pricks should be run outta SD on a fucking rail.

June Nights

2009-07-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

Movie, best: The Hangover. What do a baby, a missing tooth, A Chinese gangster, a stripper/escort, a tiger and Mike Tyson have to do with best friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms of The Daily Show fame), and the groom's brother, Alan (Zach Galifianakis)? Plenty, as it turns out, but i'm no snitch. All I can tell you is that The Hangover is summer's best comedy and an instant comedy classic. Galifianakis steals the show as the oddball of the four that head to Vegas for a bachelor party these boys won't forget. That is, if they can remember what the hell happened, find the groom after losing him to a wild night, and come back home in time for his wedding.

*** 1/2 stars out of ****

Movie, worst: I love mindless, stupid action movies. I praised Micheal Bay's work in Transformers for the charm many of the characters had, the near-perfect comic timing, and letting F/X and the action to wow us but allows us to breathe and take in who's fighting who. All of this is chucked out the window by Bay with Revenge of the Fallen, a loud, dumb, violent, racist, and misogynistic spectacle that makes you wonder how in the hell this POS even got made (hint - guys like me and you who made the first Transformers movie a hit). All the charm and teenage awkwardness that Shia LeBeouf showed as Sam Witwicky was sorely lacking. The comedic timing from John Tuturro as Simmons is forced and embarrassing. The Autobots and Decepticons - from the way they transform to how they fight - becomes unexciting to watch. And don't even get me started on Skids and Mudflap....
* 1/2 stars out of ****

Runner-up, godawful: My Sister's Keeper has got to be the most shameless tearjerker that forces you to cry, damnit, cry! This family is being torn apart by the youngest daughter's (Abagail Breslin) decision to sue mommy (Cameron Diaz, in total bitch mode) for emancipation for medical needs becasue she wants to take her kidney away and give it to her dying sister (Sofia Vassilieva) with lymphatic cancer! Squirting any tears yet? I didn't think so. This is a film for the Lifetime channel, not the big screen.

* star out of ****

Surprise, biggest: I walked into The Proposal with low expectations and to get the stench of Revenge of the Fallen off of me. I left with a smile on my face. It's a predictable romcom where the leads get together in the end. What works are the insane mishaps along the way. Margret (Sandra Bullock) bribes his assistant, Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) into marrying her, then getting divorced in order to keep her place as a publisher in Manhattan. You should know what comes next, they meet the parents in the quintessential small town where, in the next few days, shit gets blown out of proportion before the wedding. For what it's worth, Renyolds and Bullock milk it for what it's worth. The jokes don't always stick, but when they do, a big grin will be slapped upon your face.

** 1/2 stars out of ****

Acting, best: Betty White as the crazy grandma in The Proposal. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds had chemistry on-screen, but the 87 year-old best known for her work on Golden Girls steals the show from under the leads. Runner up is Sofia Vassilieva as the cancer-stricken older sister in My Sister's Keeper. I hated the film, but the movie's one star is for her tender and heartfelt performance, that even the filmmakers couldn't sully.

Someone please remove the soapbox from under Nonnan's feet

2009-07-21T16:59:00.001-07:00

After some hesitation and a time shift, three major broadcast networks have agreed to carry Barack Obama's latest primetime news conference.

The event was announced Friday afternoon as Obama battles to bolster congressional support for an ambitious health-care overhaul while facing dropping approval ratings.

But broadcasters are struggling with falling approval ratings of their own; Nielsen's audience measurements show viewership in a summertime slump.

The conference will mark the president's fourth primetime press event since he took office six months ago. Such interruptions tend to wreak havoc with network schedules and can cost millions in lost advertising.

CBS, which airs only repeats that evening, agreed early Monday to cover the conference.

But for NBC, Fox and ABC, the decision was tougher. During a summer that's otherwise strewn with repeats, Wednesday includes all of their top-rated reality programs.

The report goes on to state that NBC was reluctant at first to carry the news conference, becasue the intended schedule (9 p.m. ET) conflicted with the networks reality show "America's Got Talent," which airs Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern. The White House then decided to change the time of the conference to get NBC to air it, one hour earlier, at 8 p.m.

Of course, Noonan bills the network's decision to air the conference as "The Final Degradation of American Government."

Mark, if you're so pissed off about this, then bitch to the big dogs at ABC, NBC, and CBS, you know, the ones who are going to televise the event to begin with, not the Obama White House. Furthermore, if Bush Jr. were still president, gave a news conference about who knows what, and one of the big three decided not to televise the event live, you and your traveling band of psychotic circus freaks would be on your collective soapboxes, bitching to anyone who will listen to you and scream that this is another case of that 'pesky liberal media trying to silence conservative viewpoints!', so please, spare me with your holier-than-thou bullshit, cause the only people listening to your rants are the freaks on your website and the imaginary voices in your head.

Harry Potter and the Oscar Season.....er, I mean Half-Blood Prince

2009-07-20T21:33:00.001-07:00

Die-hard HP fans are steamed that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth of J.K. Rowling's books to be filmed, made many drastic cuts in translation. The fight scene between members of the Order and Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters at the top of the tower at Hogwarts? Poof. The sessions between Dumbledore and Potter diving into select memories to learn about the boy who would become Voldemort? Boiled down to two and a half memories. Let them bitch and moan. This new installment is quite simply, a triumph. The line between family entertainment and brooding fantasy drama is blurred. You're not sure if the young ones, or you, can sit through this delicious, dialogue driven plot and storyline without going to sleep.

Stick with it. The reward is an emotionally satisfying, occasionally hilarious, and hypnotic, haunting drama that earns the Oscar buzz its been receiving. This year, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is ordered by Dumbleore (Michael Gambon) to cozy up to an old colleague, Horace Slughorn (the brilliant Jim Broadbent) in order to coax an important memory of him and young Tom Riddle. The love bug has bitten Ron Weasly (Rupert Grint) and its Lavender Brown (a hilarious Jessie Cave) who makes Won-Won his personal sex slave, much to the jealousy and heartbreak of Hermione (Emma Watson). Kidding about the sex part, though there is innuendo in one scene that's sure to cover a few youngling's eyes from the 'rents. And Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is given a mission by the Dark Lord that could destroy his soul. Why does he continue to return to some old wardrobe every night, what his actual mission is, and why Severus Snape (Alan Rickman is amazing) continues to watch over Malfoy, i'll never tell.

Yes, I said Oscar buzz earlier on...hell, the title of my post suggests that Mr. Potter could make some serious noise in the awards season. Watch cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel work with a poet's eye for capturing the breaching darkness. Listen to composer Nicholas Hooper's beautiful, and haunting score that's sure to put a chill down your spine. Look at how visual effects supervisors Tim Burke and Tim Alexander blend in eye-poping effects (the scene in the cave with Harry and Dumbledore is frighting and spectacular) to move the story along and not merely use it as a crutch. Listen to Steve Kloves' potent screenplay, who remains faithful to Rowling's vision and brings all of the author's themes - life, love, friendship, heartbreak, and death - onto the screen and does it so seamlessly, that nothing is lost in translation from page to screen. And witness all the actors excell, particularly Broadbent and Rickman who practically steal every scene they're in. Watch all that and then tell me that Half-Blood Prince doesn't deserve a piece of the Oscar pie.

At this point, I can honestly say, with no ego, that no other movie this summer will match the magical spell that director David Yates has cast upon the multiplexes. For the longest time, I've waited for the Potter film to transcend from merely solid adaptations into artistic and soul-reaching films. With the Half-Blood Prince, after six films, the wait is over. If this is any indication of what Yates has up his sleeve, the watching the film's two part-finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film one due out November 2010, and film two July 2011) then by the end, Harry Potter will be seeing gold statuettes by the handfuls for the next two to three years.

**** stars out of ****

This is some really weird shit

2009-07-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

T-Pain and Taylor Swift have done a rap video. No joke. It's both jaw-dropping odd and funny at the same time.

Next collaboration in the works: Lil Wayne and Miley Cyrus. Or at least they're should be.

An example of life happening?

2009-07-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

So today, I learn another former alum from the class of 2008 is happily expecting a child, which makes her just the third person I know that's having a kid. Add to that, there are three or more people that I know who are in some form of a relationship that has last lasted 1 + year. Did I forget to mention that one person I knew tied the knot? (Ed. note: i'm completely happy for all the people mentioned and wish them well in all their endeavors.)

My question for tonight: How is it that many of the people from my graduating class are either in:
1.) a long-term relationship,
2.) married,
or 3.) pregnant?

It almost feels like I haven't really done shit since leaving high school...almost...but it's not a totally good feeling, though.

Super Awesome

2009-06-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of the singer-songwriter Imogen Heap. Everything about her - from the music (a mix of electronica/alternative/Britpop) to her fashion sense - is completely unique and it feels original. She is easily the best female artists that you've never heard of, unless you've watched the final two-and-a-half minutes of Garden State. This year, after two years of vblogging (video blogging) sharing her journey on making here third album (fourth, if you count Frou Frou's Details), Heap is months away from releasing Ellipse to the U.S. And here's the cover to the album, which looks fantastic:

Basically, I can hardly wait.

A Fork In the Road

2009-06-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

Do I turn left
or head right?
Should I stay and fight
or run away in flight ?
Will I wear something long and warm
or short and cool?
Is she really in love with me or
is she playing me for a fool?

Every decision we choose to make
Every chance we decide to take
A fork in the road always appears
And every road taken is not as easy as it seems.

And I thought Revenge of the Fallen was the summer's worst movie

2009-06-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

Remember when I dubbed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as the summer's worst movie? Well, Michael Bay has been dethroned by director Nick Cassavetes (the man who spawned The Notebook) and his attempt to take an ethical premise and make it a shameless, overdone, made-for-TV family melodrama that demands you cry and sniffle at ever turn.

My Sister's Keeper starts off with one of the most disgusting and heartless concepts i've heard in a while: Sarah (Cameron Diaz) and Brian (Jason Patric) Fitzgerald's daughter, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has leukemia, and neither parent have the DNA strands to keep their daughter alive. Their solution? Conceive a child that can be a living, one-stop shop for all of her needs. A bone marrow? Low blood cell count? No problem, just have Anna (Abagail Breslin) donate her bodily functions to her ailing sis.

Fast forward - Kate is 15, dying, and in need of a kidney. Anna is 11 and has had enough of giving up her life to save her sister's at mother's request, so she hires an attorney (Alec Baldwin, what the hell are you doing in this picture?!) to sue Sarah for emancipation for medical needs and all hell breaks loose for the Fitzgerald clan. Did I mention, they also have a son, Jesse (Evan Ellingson), who walks around like he doesn't exist to the family?

Will Anna win her case? Will Sarah be able to talk to her youngest into giving up her only kidney? Will the family ever be able to go back to being happy? By then, the only question you'll want answered is when this movie will end. For two hours, Cassavetes bombards you with overblown dramatic scenes that begs you to shed a tear, dab you eyes with a box of Kleenex, bawl hysterically, but cry damn it, cry! Instead of reaching for the next unused piece of tissue, My Sister's Keeper made me pull out my phone every seven minutes to check how long this film would drag on.

Instead of feeling for the characters, just about all of them pissed me off. Diaz's Sarah was the most disgusting, devolving into a cold and uncaring bitch who shrugs off Anna's and Jessie's lives to save another. Patric's Brian is distant and in once scene, doesn't even notice that his son has been out all night and has just come home. Alec Baldwin has demonstrated he's got solid dramatic chops before (see The Cooler and The Departed), but he's been reduced to cheezy courtroom showboating. Even Breslin's performance as Anna, as hard as she tries, falls flat.

The saving grace is Vassilieva, the one character even the filmmakers can't sully. She gives the movie its few touching moments - a day at the beach, the flashbacks with her cancer-stricken boyfriend (Thomas Dekker) - but its too little and too late. My Sister's Keeper, an ethical family drama that's supposed to make you weepy and uplifted, but in the end, you'll leave without feeling a thing.

* star out of ***

Transformers: The Worst Movie of the Summer

2009-06-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

The good news: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen doesn't totally suck. The F/X department went all out on the look of the battling alien robots, the Decepticons (the baddies) and the Autobots (them's the good guys); they even brought in some new characters. Megatron - voiced by the great Hugo Weaving (Mr. Smith of The Matrix trilogy) - gets more screen time. And director Michael Bay knows how to put together an amazing spectacle of shit blowing up. He's like a kid who's been given the keys to a toy store, allowing imagination to run wild with ecstasy.

The bad news: Revenge of the Fallen wasn't very good, either. The charm that Shia LeBouf had in the first movie as the bumbling award teenager, Sam, is absent from the picture; along with the comic timing of Sam's parents (the 'family discussion' about Sam supposedly beating off in the first Transformers movie would do the writers of American Pie proud). That feeling in sharing Bay's excitement and kid-like, starry eyed wonder in the first blockbuster hit has turned his marvelous creations into a head-pummeling madhouse of horrors where things are constantly being destroyed for the sake of destroying. Even John Tuturro, back portraying his role as Simmons, who took the lines that were given and turned them into sheer delight and near-perfect comic timing, looks tired and embarrassed to be in this mess.

Revenge of the Fallen sends Sam Witwicky to college, departed from his hottie girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox) and his Chevy Camero/Autobot guardian, Bumblebee, while Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots forge a alliance with the U.S. military to hunt down the remaining Decepticons. The 'plot' - you really can't call this horseshit of a script from Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who penned May's stellar reboot of Star Trek - takes Sam, Mikaela, and the Autobots to Egypt to stop the Decepticons from finding an ancient device that can power another ancient device that can destroy the sun and harvest the lifeforce of the alien robots. You buying any of this crap? Didn't think so.

To paraphrase Peter Travers, movie critic of Rolling Stone Magazine - "Revenge of the Fallen has everything. Everything loud, dumb, violent, racist, and misogynistic that director Michael Bay can think of puking up onscreen." The action sequences serve little purpose but to leave a trail of destruction an becomes stale and unoriginal. Bay's movies aren't know for its solid acting chops, which I have come to accept, but this time 'round was so hollow and emotionless that it makes bay's other disasters - the insulting Pearl Harbor and the appalling Armageddon - look like they have been robbed by members of the Academy.

Fox was sizzling in the first Transformers flick, but was never cheapened to porn star status. Her, and Isabelle Lucas - a college student with the hots for Sam and a wicked tongue - could have been replaced by adult film stars Jenaveve Jolie and Jenna Haze and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

And the shameless, ignorant black stereotypes portrayed in Autobot newbies Skids and Mudflap (get this - both are illiterate, both love talkin' jive and street, and one of them have a golden front tooth) almost made me hang my head in embarrassment of the spectacle that was taking place in front of the screen. You can hear Bay shouting to the cast and crew: "Hey, more explosions! Megan, show a little more ass, toots! Shia, Josh [Dumael], and Tyrese [Gibson], less dialogue, more yelling you're lines! Megan, what did I tell you? Less talky, more jiggling your tits! And where the fuck are the explosions I asked for?! This is what my audience wants to see!"

There's still a long ways to go before the Razzies, but I won't be surprised if Revenge of the Fallen leads in all major categories in the end. It's Michael Bay at his worst, only this time dragging Spielberg (executive producer) and his kick-ass alien robots with him thought the grime and cow shit.

Ok, I take it back. Transformers 2 really did suck.

* 1/2 stars out of ****

The King of Pop has died.

2009-06-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

This is fucked up. First First McMahon, then Fawcett, now Micheal Jackson.

We've just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.

A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived.

Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.

We're told one of the staff members at Jackson's home called 911.

La Toya ran in the hospital sobbing after Jackson was pronounced dead.

Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II.

The man had his personal demons, but no one can deny that his presence changed the face of music forever. I can remember when I was just a child when Michael was still huge in the early to mid 90's. The world of rock-n-roll has lost a legend, and he will be missed by everyone who loved his music, worshiped his moves, or was inspired to follow in his footsteps.

Long live the King of Pop.

On President Obama

2009-06-22T00:45:00.001-07:00

Let's get to the obvious: it's great to have a president who is articulate whenever he gives a speech. Its also damn refreshing to have a Commander-In-Chief that is willing to listen to all sides of an issue, rather than say its my way or the highway all of the time. The United States has been subjected to eight long years of an administration who's idea of diplomacy and the exchange of different ideas was basically do as we say or you're with the terrorists (in certain cases, if you disagreed with the agenda, you were either outed by Robert Novak, Scooter Libby, and/or Dick Cheney).

Having said that, Here's my take to my fellow liberals and President Obama himself:

To the liberals: I know you're disappointed that the President hasn't done some of the things we wold like (the defense of Defense of Marriage Act, not getting tougher on the banks, waterboarding-gate and not going after Bush administration officials, are some examples). I share your frustration, but we also have to remember one important detail - it's been almost six months since Barack Obama took office. The problems we're facing - from a recession to a health care crisis - won't be solved by Obama stealing Harry Potter's wand, and enunciating, 'Reparo,' and the economy will be thriving and Adam and Steve will be able to say "I do," legally. My honest guess is that he's picking and choosing his battles (e.g. - fix the economy and get Americans affordable health care now, get re-elected and tackle gay marriage and reforming how Wall Street does buisness in term two, possibly).

To the President: I know you're trying to get past the partisan and political divide that has poisoned the national debate for years by running as a president who'll reach out to both sides of the aisle, but in order for bi-partisanship to work, the other side must unclench their fist. The GOP, thus far, has been unwilling to do so. It's time to let the Republicans know that bi-partisanship is still on the table, but until they make the effort without acting like vindictive, shallow pricks, leave em' be. You have 60 votes (whenever Minnesota will seat Al Franken) in the Senate, a huge majority in the House of Representatives, not to mention the public on your side and an enthusiastic base eager to change our country. The Grand Old Party is, for the moment, irrelevant.

Also, I understand you're trying to the president for everyone, which is a noble goal, but at some point, you're going to have to take a strong stand on key issues we liberals voted for you on. In order to get health care and other legislation passed, you have to draw a line in the sand and say, 'this is what I, and the American people want, and this is what we're going to do. Don't like it? Tough shit.' In order to get done what needs to get done, sometimes you're going to have to risk pissing people in Congress off.

They're as mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore!

2009-06-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

I, or course, am talking about David Letterman's joke about Sarah Palin's kid getting knocked-up by Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees. Now the conservatives want him.....(drumroll, please)......fired from his gig as hos of The Late Show on CBS.

Sebastian Gray at HillBuzz has been giving lessons this week on how to get David Letterman fired for his rape jokes about Gov. Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter, Willow.

Today he has a post explaining that Republicans do not have the same tenacity as Democrats in working the system to get what they want — in this case, persuading CBS to fire David Letterman. He is correct. However, there is a bonanza of empowerment in it for Republicans if we make this a fight we are determined to win.

Sebastian says it will take 30 days of daily letter-writing to CBS and Letterman’s advertisers. That’s because for the first two or three weeks, they’ll just wait for the tempest to blow over. Not only do we have to keep it up, we have to make it build. This is our line in the sand. Letterman MUST BE FIRED NOW!!!

So I take it Jay Leno and Bill Maher should be protested as well? Both comedians have made jokes about the Governor of Alaska and her daughter, Bristol.

Furthermore, Letterman didn't mention Palin's 14 year-old, Willow when making that joke. She did that all on her own. Letterman's joke was tasteless (IMO, political leader's kids are - or should be - out-of-bounds), but Palin is out to make this bigger than what it needs to be.

You'd think the two apologies he gave this week would get him out of the trouble storm, right? Not with her supporters, apparently. And you know, when protesting, they only did it with class; no, unlike that dick on the late night comedy circuit, they would be protest their outrage, but would be respectful and not make total asses of themselves for all to see....

Random Notes

2009-06-17T00:40:00.000-07:00

* On President Obama - Let's get to the obvious: it's great to have a president who is articulate whenever he gives a speech. Its damn refreshing to have a Commander-In-Chief that is willing to listen to all sides of an issue, rather than say its my way or the highway all of the time. The United States has been subjected to that kind of mindset, and we all know that turned out in certain areas. Having said that, allow me to address the conservatives, the liberals, and the president himself:

To the conservatives: Please shut the fuck up about how Obama is driving the country on a road to socialism, or how he's a far leftist, or how he's the fucking anti-Christ. The man's already done many things that have pissed off our side (not going after Bush admnistration officials for waterborading detainees at Guantanamo Bay, his defense of DOMA - Defense of Marriage Act, to name a few) He is a pragmatic, left-of-center president, not the second coming of Joseph Stalin. Get a grip, and come back to us when you can a.) tell us us what you're for, b.) drop the Christian Right from your party, and c.) reach out to minorites and the youth without having right-wing talking heads drive us awan further.

To the liberals: I know you're disappointed that the Preisdent hans't done some of the things we wold like (see above). In a sense, I share your fustration, but we also have to remember one important detail - it's been almost six months since Barack Obama took office. The problems we're facing - from a recession to a health care crisis - won't be solved by Obama stealing Harry Potter's wand, and enuncitating, Reparo!, and the economy will be thriving and Adam and Steve will be able to say "I do," legally. My honest guess is that he's picking and choosing his battles (fix the economy and get Americans affordable healthcare now, get re-elected and takle gay marriage and reforming how Wall Street does buisness in the second term).

To the President: I know you're trying to get past the partisan and political divide that has poisoined the national debate for years by running as a president who'll reach out to both sides of the aisle, but in order for bi-partisanship to work, the other side must unclench their fist. The GOP, thus far, has been unwilling to do so. It's time to let the Republicans know that bi-partisanship is still on the table, but until they make the effort without acting like vindictive, shallow pricks, leave em' be. You have 60 votes (whenever Minnesota will seat Al Franken) in the Senate, a huge majority in the House of Representatives, not to mention the public on your side and an enthusiastic base eager to change our country. The Grand Old Party is, for the moment, irrelevent.

* On the Palin v. Letterman war - How did this become a hot-button issue? And why, now, after ever comedian from Jay Leno to Bill Maher roasted her and how Bristol got knocked up during the campaign, is she now outraged that a comedian made a tasetless joke about how one of her daughers was knocked-up by A-Rod of the Yankees? David Letterman clearly stepped over the line, but then again, who hasn't in the world of late-night television? And why are some conservatives in the blogosphere now calling for Letterman to be fired? By that logic, everyone who cracked on Palin's family and her would be on the unemployment line.

Delilah

2009-06-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

I cannot recall the warmth of the sun
Nor the taste of my lover's lips
When she pulled my face close to hers
Under sunny skies as we experience our first kiss.

These hands don't remember the rush of the sea
Or ever the touch of your soft and silky skin
When we played in the ocean
Clinging together as the morning tide came crashing in.

My eyes can't recall the colors of a rainbow
Or ever the blinding rays of light
Or how beautifully the moon and the stars
Shined as lovely as you did at night.

Nothing has been the same, my darling Delilah
Since the day you departed from this world
And I know there's nothing God or his Angels can do
To unthaw this heart that has gone cold.

This is a wound time alone cannot heal
Your death is something that shall haunt me unto the end
Until the slow decay of time or by my own hand
Will I be able to once more look upon your beautiful face again.

May Nights

2009-06-05T16:22:00.001-07:00

Movies, Best: It's a no brainer. Star Trek, a movie franchise thought to be left for dead after the fiasco that was Star Trek Nemisis and the atrocious TV show prequel Star Trek Enterprise rises from the ashes to provide the film to beat this summer at the movies. All the actors excel, notably Chris Pine capturing the swagger and charm of Captain Kirk, Eric Bana as Nero the Romulan villain with an ax to grind against the Federation, Simon Pegg is a gut buster as Montgomery Scott; but the scene stealer is Zackery Quinto as Spock. From the pointy ears right down to the first officer's actions, he scores every scene he's in. But the real credit goes to director J.J. Abrams (Mission: Impossible 3) for injecting explosive action, humor and heart into a franchise who's best days (The Wrath of Khan, First Contact) seemed long behind them.
*** 1/2 stars our of ****

Up: Let's get to the obvious - the wizards at Pixar are to movies and animation what Radiohead is to rock-and-roll, and music in general: neither have put out a godawful piece of shit; even the weaker works (A Bug's Life, Cars, and Monsters Inc. for Pixar; Amnesiac and Pablo Honey for the Oxford quintet) stand alone as a unique work of art. Does Up stand with works like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and last year's WALL-E? Hard to tell. But Up is one of the funniest - and most poignant works the animation company has made. You can feel the love between Carl (a superb Ed Asner) and his sweetheart Elle even from the time they first met. The opening sequence that takes the lovers from childhood to marriage to Elle's death is a whirlwind of joy and pain and is a study of undying love that has never flamed out. It's one of the most moving scenes in years and is more real than the forced charm tossed out in movies these days (yes, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, i'm talking to you). And the rest of the movie doesn't miss a comic beat.
*** 1/2 stars out of ****

Disappointing, most: X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Talk about a huge let down. What was supposed to be the balls-to-the-wall, sucker-punch kickoff to the summer movie season left me feeling cold and betrayed. Hugh Jackman, back as mutant with the killer claws keeps intact the humor and the badassery status he earned throughout all the X-Men movies, but it's still not enough to overcome a bland script meant to excite, intrigue and tie up all lose ends, which instead confuses (Wolverine and Sabertooth are brothers?!). Wolverine is a clear demonstration of two things: that too much can be a bad thing (see Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix, and High School Musical) and as kickass Logan is, he still needs the rest of the X-Men at his side.
** stars our of ****

Surprise, biggest: Spock returns! No, not Quinto. Lenord Nimoy playing Spock in Star Trek. Confused? Don't be. just sit back and be amazed. Not to be outdone, the Governator returns to the screen as the Terminator?! OK, it was a CG Arnold, but it still was cool to watch him throw Christian Bale around like a rag doll in Terminator Salvation.

Performances, best: The cast of Star Trek. Not a weak performance from any of the leads and supporting actors. Everyone from Chris Pine, to Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike to John Cho (yes, Jon Cho from the Harold and Kumar movies) as Commander Sulu to Winona Ryder (WTF?!) playing Spock's mother, everyone has a chance to shine and everyone is dynamite. Runner-up is also a surprise: Porn queen Sasha Grey as a Manhattan call girl in Steven Soderbergh The Girlfriend Experience. As good as Grey was, it has been reported that the 21 year-old porno actress has plans to keep doing movies and continue to have sex for the camera. Take that, Hannah Montana!

Underrated, highly: Angels and Demons. Lost in the Wolverine, Star Trek and Terminator shuffle is a thrilling, faced-paced sequel to the 2006 blockbuster The DaVinci Code, that never lets up. Director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks, reprising his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon caught a log of flak from the critics last time around: DaVinci was too talkative and too boring and Hank's haircut sucked. This time Hanks ditches the hair-don't and Howard moves at a faster, edgier pace. The plot is a mess (Langdon returns to Rome to stop the Catholic Church's old enemy, the Illuminati, from using the stolen antimatter from blowing Vatican City to Kingdom Come, but the group has infiltrated the walls of the Vatican and everyone is suspect. Huh?), but the action sizzles and the actors are solid, particularly from Ewan McGregor as Father Patrick McKenna. It may be more religious psychobabble, but its still a great time even if Star Trek and Up are sold out at the box office.
*** stars our of ****

MTV can suck my left nut

2009-05-31T22:39:00.000-07:00

A few comments about the MTV Movie Awards:

* It's a strange world we live in where Miley Cyrus beats out The Boss for song in a movie. Who sang it better: Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" fromHannah Montana: The Movie...

...or Bruce Springteen's "The Wrestler" from The Wrestler?

* Sasha Baron Cohen joins Steven Colbert in the big brass balls club.

* As I was watching the whole freak show unfold, I can fully understand why Thom Yorke of Radiohead hates MTV.....its nothing more than as, Lester Bangs from Almost Famous would say, "an industry of cool." How did MTV go from being part of the X-generation to a part of the souless, vapid, and shallow culture that glorifies talentless eye candy? For years i've wondered why I've never totally fit in with the pop culture of my generation....tonight I understand why: I have no connection with it.

* Twilight sucks. The craptastic movie swept the awards show, and they're making another one, titled New Moon. Fuck that. I'd rather sit through <Armageddon and Pearl Harbor than pay money to watch a bunch of Abercrombie and Fitch pretty boys run around with their shits off. 'Nuff said.

Shootig Star

2009-05-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

This latest poem was weird for me.
Instead of me feeling like shit, there was something therapeutic in writing this.....like even though the words I write (in my opinion) ring with aching beauty and heartbreak, it's not really so bad. For me, after looking though pictures at the girl who I liked a lot and feeling like I had missed an opportunity, I realize all that time I was chasing after something that I wouldn't have been able to obtain; that I would only be her friend and nothing more. It's not a great feeling, but in time it's not so bad.
I guess its a right of passage that every young man goes through: wanting to be with the girl you like, but never having the chance to show her what you're made of because she's in a prior commitment.
The inspiration was Weezer's "Only In Dreams" from the band's debut album, along with Coldplay's "Yellow;" Radiohead's "(Nice Dream)," and "A Wolf At the Door;" Imogen Heap's "Goodnight and Go;" and Death Cab For Cutie's "Someday You Will Be Loved."

You see her everyday
Everything you see in her
Clouds every second of your mind.

You only want one chance
To show her what she's been missin'
And someday, you and her becoming one, somewhere in time.

It's only a nice dream
Merely wishing on a shooting star
You reach out to grab her hand
Only to realize she's too far gone.

She comes up to you
Gives you her numbers
Then tells you, 'Hey sweetie, call me.'

You're stomach's doing back flips
You begin the believin'
That you and she were destined to be.

But it's only a nice dream
You're only wishing upon a shooting star
You're reaching out to grab her hand
Only to wake up and learn that she's too far gone.

You've snapped out of you're daydream
Realizing you were chasing after a ghost
But you're still hanging onto the lies.

Until you see her with her desired man
Laughing and sharing a passionate kiss
That you're left standing there wiping tears from you're eyes.

It was only a nice dream
Just wishing on a bright, shooting star
She never reached out to take your hand
Because she was already too far gone.

The Outrage Game: Memorial Day Edition

2009-05-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

Never a dull moment with partisan hack extraordinaire Matt Margolis of Blogs For Victory.com. Today's faux outrage against President Obama? He went golfing on Memorial Day!

Really, Barry? Really? According to a White House pool report, posted on Drudge Report:

Subject: Pool report 5/25/09

POTUS is, reportedly, golfing with Marvin Nicholson. No actual glimpses of the presidential golf game. Aides say POTUS paused at 3 p.m. to observe a moment of silence.

The jerk won’t let Memorial Day get in the way of his golf… sounds like Bill Clinton, who passed up the chance to get Osama bin Laden so his golf game wouldn’t get interrupted.

The president's agenda on Memorial Day:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama begins Memorial Day hosting a breakfast at the White House for families who have lost loved ones in military service. The Gold Star family members will be honored in the State Dining Room.

Later this morning, the president will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

Afterward, Obama will deliver remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington.

Now it is true that the president played some golf today, but Matty left out one important detail: this was after he performed his mandatory rituals on Memorial Day!

FORT BELVOIR, Va., May 25 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama relaxed on the links Monday after taking part in a Memorial Day service at Arlington National Cemetery.

Aids said the president spent about 4 1/2 hours on the course at Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Va., out of sight of a pool reporter who was kept in a roped-off area of the base PX food court. He then returned to the White House.

Obama's aides said the president paused at 3 p.m. to observe a moment of silence.

Obama ventured out on the course despite rain falling as his motorcade arrived on base. It wasn't disclosed who accompanied the president on his outing.

So not only did President Obama play some golf after taking part in the traditional Memorial Day service in Arlington, he even paused his golf game at 3p.m. to honor a moment of silence for the fallen veterans of the U.S. Military, just like he asked all Americans to do the same.

But since Matt wants to play the outrage game, let me throw him a 'what's worse scenario:'

What's worse? Obama playing a few founds of golf after he completed his traditional duties.......

....Or former President Bush playing the guitar and his Secretary of State Condelezza Rice going shoe shopping while the citizens of New Orleans were drowning in their homes and dying when Hurricane Katrina hit?

Please, spare me your false outrage, you fucking hypocrite.

A Fool Falling Headfirst in Love

2009-05-10T12:56:00.001-07:00

It takes one look from you, darling
Your amber eyes locked into mine
I might as we be a-fallin'
From Heaven's Gate, unto a moonlit sky

It takes one flash, baby
From your radiant smile
That i'll be helpless and hopeless to resist
You already know i'll keep you company awhile

Honey, Honey
I've been blinded by your spell
Have you been sent to me from Heaven?
Or are you a demon in disguise
Waiting to drag me to the gates of Hell?

For now, I have no choice
But to let this compass in my chest guide me
For now, only time will tell.

...huh?!

2009-05-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

The news story that i'm still scratching my head over.

FINDLAY, Ohio - A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.

Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost, who has never been to a dance before, said he plans to attend Findlay High School's prom Saturday.

Frost, a senior at Heritage Christian School in northwest Ohio, agreed to the school's rules when he signed a statement of cooperation at the beginning of the year, principal Tim England said.

The teen, who is scheduled to receive his diploma May 24, would be suspended from classes and receive an "incomplete" on remaining assignments, England said. Frost also would not be permitted to attend graduation but would get a diploma once he completes final exams. If Frost is involved with alcohol or sex at the prom, he will be expelled, England said.

Ok, I get the sex and alcohol part, but the school suspended one of their own for simply taking his girlfriend to her prom?? But here's the kicker:

"In life, we constantly make decisions whether we are going to please self or please God. (Frost) chose one path, and the school committee chose the other," England said.

Jesus fucking Christ.....he's a hormonal, angst ridden male teenager who probably beats off to a friend's naughty movies, all while listening to AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" every time the 'rents are out of town (you know, like me almost a year ago); you're not training him to become a priest who tells the alter boys to come hither and drop the pants to receive the 'touch of God!'

He's a teenage boy...let him be just that.