America is Having a Cold Flash... a Cold War Flashback, That is

In Warren Beatty's "Reds," socialists from all over the world tromp through the wintry streets of Moscow belting out a Soviet hymn. In "2010," feuding Russian and American watercraft confront each other in Central America. In "Rocky IV," Soviet/American tension is played out in each violent blow of the fight between Sylvester Stallone's Rocky and Dolph Lundgren's Drago.

What do all these movies have in common?

All produced during the Cold War, they share a common fear about the deteriorating state of relations between the two empires. And in the end, there is always some kind of reconciliation between the inhabitants of both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Needfully enough, the Cold War ended before I was born. Russia and America haven't exactly been the staunchest of allies since then, but things didn't start to get this bad until last summer, when Russia placed former Soviet republic Georgia under its thumb once again.

And this morning, I read in the newspaper that the same government (in Moscow) that allows skinheads to march down their streets unassailed has arrested every gay-rights activist for holding a march... even the ones that weren't marching! The city's mayor has called such marches "satanic" and a threat to fundamental morals.

Since when was it satanic to insist common human protection and fairness? Russia isn't a Soviet nation anymore; Communism, that elaborate and undignified political system that only works if you take out the human beings, is now at home only in places like China and Cuba. Yet the country is clearly reverting to what, in "Reds," Emma Goldman called a militaristic prison, a nightmarish police states where dissent and equality are slaves to the establishment.

Isn't there anyone to speak out against such a horrendous squashing of the human voice? Why does a government protect the rights of those who persecute others so arbitrarily, while calling decent people satanic and immoral?

It's sick.

It looks like the Cold War is making a comeback, and this time, it's even worse. The 1984 movie "2010," a sequel to "2001: A Space Odyssey," is very rarely taken seriously (despite its vibrant, valid message) because its central premise-- Russians and Americans overcoming their differences to cooperate on a dangerous space mission-- revolves around the Cold War still being an issue in the years 2010-2015. It looks like they still can. But the danger is greater this time around. There are more nuclear powers on the world stage than there were 20 years ago... and more confrontational ones at that. Nobody will be safe unless people can realize that, being put upon this planet, we were given the responsibilities to safeguard our brothers and sisters, as well as our common, spherical home.

In "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace," the Man of Steel rallies to disarm the nuclear world. If it takes a fictional guy in a bright cape and tights to point out violent, arrogant human stupidity, then, quite frankly, we're doomed-- and not just the humans.

Oh, Boyle

Or... Boyle vey?

All the media frenzy over Scottish chanteuse sensation Susan Boyle has mostly been focused on one aspect of her being: her looks. And only because she doesn't have the "celebrity" look.

I am really not so happy at a hypocritical (I suddenly am in doubt of my spelling...) mass media that appears to be condemning (or at the very least, gently rebuffing) those who criticize Boyle's appearance while fixating on it itself. Am I the only one who gets how wrong that is? It's a little bit like saying, "If you look at that wall over there, you're a bad person."

Royt.

It just goes to show, I guess, that people still can't get past appearances. I mean, that's really pathetic. What is this obsession with how somebody looks? I've never heard her sing, myself, but she seems to have quite a bit of talent. Can't we focus on that? If I have to hear one more time about how "different" she looks, I'm going to go back to reading stories about Obama's dog.

Dude, Where's My Dog? Or: The Death of the American Media, Part II

This won't be a particularly long post. Just one more thing.

Enough about the Obamas' flipping dog already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's not news! That's fluff!

I mean, it's almost like there are only a handful of people in the world who read this blog or something....

Things I No Longer Want to See in the News

One possible reason for the imminent and terrifying collapse of the American newspaper industry can be summed up inn three little words: "slow news day."

These are the days when scant newspapers consist primarily of stories about Boy Scouts fighting bobcats, people mounting a crusade to flavor everything with bacon, and Lindsay Lohan's drunken antics (do they think if we read enough stories about them, they'll start surprising us?) These are the days when hopeless editors struggle to find anything that will eat up the space between advertisements, which now consume the majority of most papers' interiors anyway, regardless of whether or not it's relevant, true, or obviously embellished.

Well, I for one get tired of reading these stories. The obvious solution would be to stop reading them then, right? Well, I don't anymore, but they're still there. It is quickly progressing to the point where their mere presence infuriates me like the romantic dialogue in Attack of the Clones.

A good reporter can find stories everywhere. A bad reporter will make a story out of anything. That is a distinction that, to most publishers, lacks a difference, so they continuously print these meaningless "stories" because they need something to print. Well, if people are vocal enough about this now, maybe we can stop these page fillers in the future and get more people interested in reading the newspaper (I'm sure informed readers will flock in once they realize that the media has become substantive), thereby saving a failing-- and crucial-- industry.

What follows is a list of stories I consider, in my eternal candor and opinionation (if that's a word, and I hereby declare that if it isn't already, it is now), to be extraneous fluff.

Back to Lindsay Lohan.... Anything involving her should belong solely to TMZ. I am not interested in her. She is a lousy actress, a terrible example, and a pathetic excuse for a human being. Her bad behavior is for the tabloids, not a legitimate American publication (they should even keep her out of the entertainment section-- she doesn't qualify). All celebrity news, in fact, could use a gigantic overhaul. Sensing boredom with Lohan's exploits, media figures have already begun replacing her with other Hollywood good-girls-gone-bad. It is, however, still the same formula. As such, it should be treated with the same hostility-- don't print it, folks, it's not news! One last addendum. A short while ago, I encountered a filler article (I can't remember the publication) with the headline "Burton/Taylor Divorce." It ended up being a story about a filmmaker seeking the rights to dramatize the messy tale, but that headline was just asking for trouble. Liz Taylor and Dick Burton began their unholy union in the early 1960s. They ended it not long after. Again, it's not news. It's really just sad-- and not in that good, bitten-by-an-asp kind of way.

Animal Rescues Family.... I'm sorry, but once it was used as the plot for a hundredth Disney and/or direct-to-video movie, it ceased being cute and/or entertaining. It didn't help that the Disney creatures could all either talk or play an instrument. Animal news really only has one distinction from celebrity news as discussed above: the animals are actually likeable.

William Shatner Pawns Gallbladder.... That's the next logical step after he put that kidney stone on eBay. If a celebrity is desperate enough to sell either a body part or solid former affliction on an internet retailer, it may be time to hang up the ol' Starfleet uniform. I was also much happier before I found out what Captain Bill had done. Seriously, it's much less depressing to read about global terrorism or orphans in poor communities.

Lastly: Anything Involving a Truly Newsworthy Person/Place/Thing Combined with Elements of Those Other Stories.... So President Obama has a dog! Big flipping deal! For that matter, who cares if Lindsay Lohan gets a DUI while driving through the Vatican?

Well, I'm off the soap box now. Just please don't led the suds go to waste, America!

Just Something to Think About

There's been a lot of back-and-forth in recent days about the firmly established anti-condom stance possessed by Pope Benedict XVI (and, yes, I think we can now say quite conclusively that he does look like the Emperor from the Star Wars films).

One side paints the sometimes-ineffective contraceptives as dangerous in that they provide a false sense of security and encourage promiscuity; the other has said that they do say lives and, essentially, the Pope needs to stick to matters of Heaven and Hell instead of meddling in the nightmarish realm of the STD.

Here's what I say.

According to the anti-condom camp, mankind can resist their animal urges to engage in adult scenarios. For numerous individuals across the globe, this is true. Just look at all the multitudes of nuns, priests of various religions, and even protesters who live entire lifetimes of abstinence with a startlingly high degree of success. However, as a rule, this is not true. The force that draws two people together is intensely stronger than the various forces that keep them apart. Humans are, essentially, animals, and as a species, celibacy is not a viable option.

Here's the other part. HIV and other STDs are spread through the transmission of bodily fluids (I know, it's disgusting; bear with me). This transmission occurs during human mating. Now, wouldn't it be neat if there were a way to form an artificial barrier to block those fluids from moving from person to person? Oh, wait-- there is! Condoms! They are not accurate 100% of the time at preventing pregnancy, and at preventing infection transmission, that accuracy rate, I've been told, drops over twenty percent.

Let me finish.

That still leaves a likelihood somewhere in the mid-to-high seventies that the spread of disease will be stopped! But when sex is unprotected, there can't be any escape from the risks. The invisible condom has an accuracy percentage of exactly 00.

You can't stop people from doing what people do. Maybe on a small scale, but not every member of the freaking human race. So encouraging people not to use condoms encourages people to think their situation is hopeless. People shouldn't be forced to choose between loneliness/life and love/possible death.

I believe Benedict's "condomnation" (excuse the pun) should be referred to as his message of death. It won't do anything at all to prevent one human life from being extinguished; it may even spur it on. I say bravo to all the people who pass out contraceptives in impoverished nations, and the non-impoverished kind as well. You are preserving a chance for life in the most sacred of all human arenas: love.

As The Who Once Sang, "Miracle Cure"

It seems like the media these days is dominated by one "genre" (for lack of a better word) of news.

That is the genre of people saying unbelievably stupid things in public.

It happened to Mel Gibson, Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Isaiah Washington, Rush Limbaugh, and even President Obama. These unbelievable utterances are generally followed by half-hearted apologies, which are then followed by more sincere, false follow-up apologies. Unless you're Gibson, in which case they're followed by binge drinking and even worse sound bites.

Can anything be done for this rapid outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease?

Experts have recently approved just such a "miracle cure." It's called a brain.

The best part of this revolutionary treatment is that everyone already has one! Terrific, isn't it? It just takes a little extra training to use it, since the typical human impulse is to let the tongue go first. And I know that can be very tempting-- sometimes, you just want to say something, right? But a stupid phrase by itself is at least a thousand times better than a stupid phrase followed by an apology that everyone knows is less real than the dwarf that sneaks into bedrooms at night to steal socks and underwear.

Here's a good philosophy: your brain is (hopefully) bigger than your tongue. Don't let the latter defeat the former.

Blast from the Past or Jumping the Gun?

Yesterday, I was watching that episode of The Simpsons where Homer and Marge tell the kids of Marge's college days in the nineties (yes, the nineties), and for the first time in my life, I was hit with official nineties nostalgia.

However, the 90s still seem so close... can we really be getting misty about them yet like we do with the 60s, 70s, and 80s?

Well, just because they seem close doesn't mean they still are. At this point, they're nine years away. And lest we forget, people were mooning over the loss of the 80s by 1994... and probably a lot sooner. Also, VH1 aired I Love the 90s a few years ago. So I suppose I am a little behind the times; it's really just because when you're living a decade (especially when you're as young as I was then), you don't notice the weird trends and tones that make it what it is-- you have to wait until you're (un)comfortably free and clear. After all, did anybody notice big hair? Not until it had gone the way of the hippie.

Feeling this kick of nostalgia, I decided to evaluate the highs and lows of the 1990s, the decade that produced coffee culture, grunge, and (most importantly of all :), me! You wouldn't know it to begin with, but there is just as much to love and reminisce about the 90s as there was for many people about the past few decades... and some things to hate and say, "Thank the skies that's over".

Harry Potter. Can you believe the first book was published in the US 12 years ago?! That's right. And the books are actually explicitly set in the 1990s (evidently, the movies' production companies deemed it not important, which was a shame-- it would have been awesome to see Fred and George mourn the death of Kurt Cobain in a scene). Well, they started a craze that has lasted longer than most, and has no end in sight. The first three books (all published, I'm willing to bet, in the 90s) were the greatest because not everybody knew about them and J.K. Rowling wasn't pandering to anyone at the time. Plus, Harry is a British punk-- he has the messy hair, the tattered clothing, and, farther into the series, a certain tangible sense of apathy that's the nineties in a nutshell. If he didn't live in England, he probably would have been carrying around Nirvana and Green Day in a walkman.

Savage Garden. If the 80s had WHAM!, the 90s had Savage Garden. No wonder their music was so popular (for three years, 1997 until their breakup after 2000's Affirmation). "A Thousand Words" is one of the best songs of the 90s, and "Santa Monica" manages to capture the decade's spirit (supermodels, coffee shops, and in-line skating), coming through nowadays as a nostalgic cry for a time and place that seem to exist now only in the mind.

Must See TV. The official title of First Must See TV Show is widely disputed. A lot of people put the moniker on Seinfeld (1990). However, I attach it to Frasier (1993), because it was actually bearable. Frasier had it all-- coffee, post-Cold War sophistication, and the redefined family situation for which the nineties are famous. A year after its premiere, NBC did it again with Friends, which a lot of people find an easier show in which to take an interest. From then on, NBC had a nearly continuous stream of hit sitcoms that other networks and even Modern NBC can only envy-- shows like Just Shoot Me and 3rd Rock from the Sun that, even if they were irritating TV series (which neither of those examples were), were still insanely popular and legitimately well-written. No other cache of sitcoms so influenced the decade or were so influenced by it.

Coffee Culture. Bill Engvall said that before 1990, you could go into any coffee shop in the country and just order a cup of coffee, but in the 90s, "You got to have a latte... or an espresso...." He had a point. Before 1990, it would have been pretty darn inconceivable for people to go into a cafe and pay those ridiculous prices just to have one cup of coffee and sit for two to three hours. After that point, we had entire sitcoms dedicated to people doing just that (see above). Over time, this permanent craze has evolved to include high-speed internet and would-be competition with McDonald's (would be, that is, if McDonald's didn't suck out loud), but it was those dark little beans that had one of the most profound cultural impacts of their day.

Grunge. Another fine product of Seattle, grunge is what the characters of the proverbial That 90s Show would sit around and listen to after hanging around at the coffee house. I still believe Nirvana was the only band that could pull off this sound without seeming like ripoffs, but that was because they had the virtue of being on the frontier. Unfortunately, grunge has also produced wannabe copycats and the mess that is now Courtney Love.

Early Green Day. Back before Green Day believed in social consciousness for its own sake, they produced a long string of great punk records and watered the seed that was planted by the Ramones and left to die by their lookalikes. The 1994 album Dookie is also one of the definitive albums of the decade and perhaps even the genre of punk itself (the opening line of the opening track has the protagonist explicitly declaring he doesn't care anymore).

And the not so good....
Jar Jar Binks. Mesa very not impressed. Even as an eight-year-old enthralled by the prospect of seeing Star Wars in theatres for the very first time, I wanted to throw my popcorn at the screen when he first appeared. (Spoiler alert) The real sin is that they killed off Mace Windu and left Jar Jar alive to torture us! Complain about the Ewoks all you want... they don't even hold an obnoxious little candle to this waxy digital monstrosity.

The End of Calvin and Hobbes. Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz wrote up until he died. Bill Watterson, on the other hand, left a mere ten years of Calvin and Hobbes for us to enjoy. We can only conclude that Calvin's parents finally gave in to the siren call of Ritalin.

Bill Clinton's Near-Impeachment Experience. As recent history has shown, there are far worse things a president can do than lie about having sex with an intern. But the lie was still highly disappointing, and the man everybody claimed would restore the Democratic Party to its JFK-era glory ended up leaving office with naught but a whimper and an "I didn't know perjury was a crime."

Jar Jar Binks. He was so bad, he deserved another one.