I just saw the film “Resident Evil: Extinction”, the latest installment of the film series related to one of my favorite video-game franchises (which it is slowly murdering). I won’t bore you with the typical criticisms of “this movie had dialogue worse than a drunken-frat boy discussion forum” and “this has less reality in it than my plans of becoming mayor”. Oh no, there were worse aspects of this movie that need a proper flogging.
Apparently, Zombification not only turns a usually normal human into a mindless, flesh-hungry killing machine, but also a neo-Nazi. I have never, ever, understood the preference of monsters, demons, super-human psycho killers, and other murderous creatures for people of dark skin. I don’t think I have ever seen a horror movie or movie series in which any of the black characters survived. However, as in most movies made in the U.S., there are only about 1 or 2 token minority characters to off, and seeing as most people die anyways it is fairly understandable that they wouldn’t exist by the end of the movie (as the odds were well against them).

In this movie, however, there were about three or four African Americans, a latino, a few British guys and a handful of other minorities. Not one, not ONE person with an accent or dark skin-tone survived in this movie, not even the guy with the southern accent from Texas. The only people that made it out alive were so white that one of them was actually named K-Mart (this isn’t a joke, although the movie seemed to think otherwise).
Although, at least ethnic minorities get the privilege of being killed in a horror movie, I don’t think there are any overt homosexuals in any horror movie ever made. Maybe I’d like to be chewed on by some ravenous hound from hell, maybe for a chance I’d like to see a lesbian thrown into a wood-chipper, maybe we could have an effeminate guy turned into dinner for some sort of mutant spider once in awhile? Is it really that much to ask?

I demand affirmative murderous action! I demand equal representation in maulings! I demand civil slayings! I’m officially starting a “gay-victim pride” day next year. (Hey, maybe my African American readers can help out, I mean, the more minorities there are the more likely ONE of us is going to survive through whatever apocalyptic scenarios Hollywood pukes up in the coming years!)

Funny responses to the tasering from people that don’t know how to watch a video and understand what’s going on:

Oh no! Soon we won’t have any 1st Amendments left!

?????????

Darfur, police beating and shooting African Americans, Jena 6, the war in Iraq where hundreds of thousands have died? Nopes, this is one of the worst things he knows about:

I like this guy:

Great, if I side with the police I side with this guy, if I side against I’m with all those other people:

Please send in funny responses (on either side of the fence) and I’ll post them: Visit the Contact us Page to find our email!

I’ve held off talking about this because, unlike most media pundits on both the left and the right, I like to actually know what is going on before I speak and reason things out.

I’ve seen the video a few times now, including this wonderful remix:

I’ve also read a number of articles about the incident and have come to this conclusion:

This kid is not a martyr, the police were not acting brutally, this has nothing to do with George W. Bush, and my fellow liberals are jumping on this like it’s their ticket to stardom. Everyone on the left has been up in arms that a student has been tasered “For asking a question”, even on my favorite radio station Airamerica.com.

Of course, the student wasn’t tasered for asking a question, the student was told to yield when he ran over the allotted question amount and time, he was then asked to leave the microphone, the microphone was cut and the police attempted to escort him away from it, the guy wouldn’t budge, the police tried to force him from the mic, the kid resisted and started screaming, the police pushed further, the kid continued to scream, flail, jump, run, and struggle, they took him to the ground, four of them had to restrain him (he’s a rather muscular, atheltic looking guy) and then tasered him because he would not stop resisting, flailing, screaming, and kicking about.

I’d like to remind you all that I am an ultra-liberal, certainly not in love with the idea of a police state. I do, however, expect that when my fellow liberals are speaking out (including when saying things I believe in, some of what this kid said I think is valid) that they are respectful to others. This kid decided what he had to say was more important than what anyone else in that room had to say, he decided that he wanted fame and praise and to have his voice heard over everyone else’s. I do not respect that, I do not respect the disruption of forums where people are being allowed to speak their mind, I do not respect people trying to shout down others when there is no direct need to (what was he trying to accomplish exactly, shame Kerry into becoming president?).

There are instances where I wouldn’t mind his behavior, like when he tries to speak freely in a public protest on public property and police try to subdue him. He was granted the right to speak though, however, he was not the ONLY person granted that right. The reason why they tried to remove him from that forum was because he would not conform to the regulations of a democratic debate, he was fighting democracy, he was fighting the right of others to practice their free speech, and he was endangering people around him with his flailing, jumping, and kicking for no good reason.

Should he have been tasered? I am not sure. He was a rather strong-looking individual acting like a complete lunatic and would not stop resisting. He had to be held down by no less than four officers and would still not stop, personally, if I was a police officer I would have either tased the guy or pepper sprayed him.
Anyways, here is my personal litmus test of when civil disobediance is actually civil disobedience and not some jerk trying to get attention (they don’t necessarily need to meet every qualification, this is just a basic guideline for the most part):

1. It is part of an organized protest or a concerted effort to forward a cause or block an injustice from occurring.

2. It occurs when faced with undemocratic opposition.

3. No. 2 can be ignored if the individual is in dire need, if his people are being violently or harshly oppressed, if he is being blocked from saying what he needs to say to defend himself, his rights, and the rights of the people he or she represents.

4. He only puts others in danger when there is no other option, when in a state of open conflict with a tyrannical regime, and only in the context of organized battle and not terrorism.

5. The individual cannot block other people’s rights unless he or she has a good enough reason to (whether or not Kerry was in the Skull and Bones club, why he conceding the election, and whether or not the voting machines were rigged is not a dire circumstance).

I have absolutely no respect for this guy, at the same time I am not going to be pressing my lips against the police any time soon.

I just wish other liberals could get over their ideological leanings and end these constant knee-jerk reactions. It just makes us look bad in the long run (like when certain groups protest the arrest of a cop-killer, selling T-Shirts saying that he’s innocent, and then come to find him, a month later, admitting to killing said cop. This actually happened recently).

I am tired of political groups leaping onto events they don’t understand and using them to advance their causes: The tasering, the Virginia Tech massacre, 9/11, Columbine, the recent mine collapse…etc…etc… Everyone just jumps onto some sort of bandwagon condemning one party and hating on another. These issues are complicated people, could you at least wait it out before you start declaring heroes and villains?

You can find the other videos, the real ones, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g7zlJx9u2E

In slight jealousy of Cate’s newest blog post… I decided to do one too!

Strange Folk 2007 Rocked! We would have made a video but the camera is broken. Yikes.

Here are some photos:

Our Booth!

Some of the many vendors!

The sweet goods I snagged from Box Wonder and Jenny Harada!

I really can not wait until next year!

They wanted to know why I thought this: “Apathy is more destructive than Nazism, totalitarianism, the most radical forms of Islam, Christianity, etc. combined.”

Here’s my response:

“The environment is a big one. People running around being happy little consumers care little about the rainforest’s destruction and global warming.

Social and economic justice in general is another. These are the people that step over individuals starving and begging in the streets, they just don’t care. They will not listen to other people’s pleas because they do not care. At least with people who hate the poor a dialogue can be started.

Secondly, an indirect effect is that apathetic individuals tend to allow radicals to take over, they do not resist when a Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet or other tyrant comes to power and starts wreaking havoc. They allow rampant destruction, starvation, and chaos to consume third world.

Apathy, as far as I am concerned, is neglect.

Imagine an apathetic parent versus a radical evangelical one, which would you prefer to be raised by, which would rear the better child (or, indeed, in which case would the child be more likely to survive ).

Imagine an apathetic construction worker.

Imagine an apathetic school teacher.

The only thing worse than these people are those few murderers and tyrants who cause all of this pain, destruction, and death. A parent purposefully murdering her baby is the only thing worse than a neglectful, apathetic parent allowing their baby to starve to death, get terribly sick, or fatally injure themselves.

Just as a neglectful society is barely above a society that purposefully eliminates their underclass (and in most cases that sort of society only comes into being because the good or neutral people of that nation do not stand against such actions, or not in sufficient quantities).

That’s why I say that Apathy is the most destructive philosophy (or lack thereof) that has ever existed. It allows the other, purposefully dangerous and destructive ideologies to flourish (just as a society that doesn’t care about crime allows criminals to flourish) and in itself causes massive environmental attrition, social degradation, and a substantial weakening of science, art, technology, and economy.

Apathy is AIDS, it weakens a society to the point where more pernicious viruses can take it down or hijack its workings for their own design. Just as the virus itself doesn’t kill a soul, merely allows other organisms to invade and take over.”

What do you guys think?

Sit down sit down, every just calm yourselves. I know you have all been anticipating my ramblings for a week or so now. Just take a breath, move your chairs closer, I hope that what I am going to tell you was well worth the wait (it probably wasn’t, ha ha you waited for NOTHING NOTHING!!! HA HA HA HA)…er…..*ahem*

Anyways, I managed to control myself at a recent philosophy club meeting on my conservabilly university. We all watched the film “Jesus Camp”, a hilarious (and scary) expose’ on certain evangelical movements in this country. If you havn’t already seen it I suggest you do so, now.

Now, this being the type of University that it is there were a number of Christians in the audience, fundamentalist ones. Which, actually, I was quite glad of. I hate intellectual circle-jerks as much as I hate Christian dogma-tasticals. I really enjoy heavily-mixed groups, you get more opinions and thus many more types of people to argue with!

For my part I plainly stated that I felt that for the most part Christians are the enemies of Homosexuals, mostly because they either don’t want us to have equal rights or because they don’t care about them. This actually put the Christians on the defensive, though they didn’t successfully answer what I was getting at. I told them that I don’t care how much they love homosexuals, how much they don’t want bad things to happen to us, I said (and this goes for liberals and any other kind of person): if you don’t try to help us out of the situation we’re in then we thank you for the sentiment but it’s rather pointless. It doesn’t help us one bit that you don’t hate gays, we need active support. You might as well just hate us, honestly.

For their part they mainly tried to refocus the debate with “I don’t hate Homosexuals”, and “We think too much about man and man’s law, this is supposed to be about god and what god wants”, and the old “Hate the sin but love the sinner”. Now, the debates on the facebook group forums have actually been much more productive, and they Christians, I think, are seeing my point of view.

Another positive development is that one of the Christians in the audience is an African American that knows me, because we both tried to found (along with a number of others) a black student union on this campus (No, I am not black…I just happen to support them, their rights, and ACTIVELY at that.) He even referred to me as a friend and brother when he was giving his response to my statements.

I ended up talking with him after the show and told him that what would he think if I said that he was my friend and brother but that my religion said that black people can’t drive cars, or have other rights? We talked about a number of my concerns and I agreed to sign up for a club that he was vice president of, a Christian organization on campus. I made sure he knew that I was not a Christian but I wanted to open up a dialogue between fundamentalists and homosexuals, because of all the misunderstanding and hatred (I must admit that I am still getting over a strong hatred of Christianity and Christians in general).

For my efforts I have come to a better stance (I feel) on this whole issue: Hate the Christianity, Love the Christian.

NOW ON TO CRANKY-MATTERS! You all will be able to meet me, can you believe it, ME! This coming weekend (Saturday the 22nd) me, David, and probably noone else important will be in Illinois for this craft-show: http://www.strangefolkfestival.com/

O’fallonites and all travelers will be treated to my rantings and ravings (and, actually, I would like to be treated to your own, both artistically and verbally!). I will be ruling over the grand pavilion of wonder for the Ceiling Project. Anyone who attends will be given art supplies so they can make a picture that will go on the ceiling of our store! Also, I am making a video for Claire McCaskill, a Missouri senator, that will contain messages of what the people of Missouri want her to do (or not do). So, Anyone traveling from Missouri can help me out! (None of you Illinois losers can, you’ll just have to send your requests to your precious Obama, I’m sure he’ll care to listen while he is trying to be president, heh, fat chance.) I mean, he’s not even a WOMAN, men don’t listen to people, I know I certainly don’t. Anyways, It’ll be a site to see, so come on down! (Or up…if you live in the south, or sideways if you are directly to the east or west of the event)

More reviews will be coming soon, if any of you are artists, musicians, or just cool people doing cool stuff please email us and we’ll see if we like you (if not we hire young children to prank-call your house for ten days straight).

NOW FOR COOL MUSIC I FOUND!