Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Rant-o-matic

I've got a few things on my mind today.

First, I've been reading through the news about Jill Carroll, the reporter held captive in Iraq for 82 days and released at the end of March. The media praises her for her bravery, surviving what many others have not. I join with them in this. She held on through what had to be hell. In order to be released she had to make an anti-war propaganda film "supporting" her captors. Again, I support her in this, it was a do or die situation. Now many in the conservative half of the blogshpere and parts of the media are blasting her, saying she was a willing participant. I don't give a rat's ass who you are or what your political alignment is, this is a human life we are talking about. She was an American just out doing her job and got kidnapped by the same thugs who behead unarmed Americans because they are too weak and spineless to face someone who might have a chance of defending themselves. They offered her freedom for saying some mean things about the president and the blog thugs fault her for taking them up on it? This pisses me off so much there are not words in the human vocabulary to describe it. What if she were your daughter, sister, or wife? Would you rather see her say some mean things about your president or see her head being severed with a dull knife while the blood gurgles down her throat and her screams become a death rattle? For the love of God, shut the fuck up.

In other news (trying to bring the blood pressure down a notch), my pit minion (yes D, I am stealing your topic) posted an interesting point about how MTV will edit the words "gun" or "rob" from any video they air but not words like "faggot" from the old Dire Straits song "Money for Nothin'". So, hate speech is ok but for the love of God if anyone mentions a gun and it is so bleeping gone. You can show boobs as long as you blur a two inch square over the nipple. Ass is cool as long as there is a thin string up the crack. Drugs are also cool. Maybe it is (to paraphrase Afroman) "...because the FCC got high." I am not generally a fan of censorship anyway but for the love of Pete, if you are going to censor things make some consistent rules. At a high school party I helped chaperone they played "My Hump" by the Black-Eyed Peas. They changed one lyric from "my lovely lady lumps" to "my lovely little lumps" while leaving in "what you going to do with all that breast inside that shirt" and "what you gonna do with all that ass inside them jeans." I know, in one verse of the regular version she uses the "little lumps" lyric but you could hear the splice where the DJ had inserted "little" over "lady".

I guess what drives me most crazy is the "slippery slope" concept used by most nay sayers. "Marijuana is a slippery slope to Crack and Heroin" or "Gay unions are a slippery slope to all of our children becoming gay" and my all time favorite "Stopping illegal immigrants is racist and a slippery slope to closing down our borders and not letting anyone in." Who gets to draw the line where that slope begins? Where is the ledge? Why is it that only the least informed and the most intolerant get a voice? For instance, why is it only police and fear mongers get to inform Dateline about MySpace? Where are those actually good enough at statistics to show how your child has a far better chance of being raped by a family member than anyone they meet online? All I saw were adults freaked out that their child had a MySpace account and saying they would make their child delete it immediately. God forbid their child have a place to vent. It would be far better for them to bottle all emotions and maybe kill themselves than have their name on the net.

Ok, I have vented enough for now. Next time we return to our regularly scheduled bullshit.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm with you on the jill Carroll thing. Do what ya gotta do.
I mean, a hiker who got held hostage by that boulder had to eat his hand off to free himself. I'm glad Jill is home.

In other news...
I watch Dateline way too much. It creates fear in me that I am better off without. I think that may also be why I had that little episode of fear with the dentist last week. And, why that dude that emailed me on myspace creeped me out.

Anonymous said...

I've been known to say mean things about this president just because he's a lousy president. No death threats at all!