News Flash: Steubenville Rapists ARE NOT Heroes. Got It?

Do I seriously need to explain to people, what the fuck is wrong with the Steubenville rape case? Are we really so irredeemable as a species, that an entire town in Ohio TO THIS DAY shrugs off a 16 year old girl being gangraped while drunk and unconscious? Are the morals of the so-called Heartland of America so bankrupt that it's considered acceptable for the local high school football coach to NOT report this happening, when he knew full well about it? (something that is a FELONY in every civilized part of the world)

Don't even get me started on so-called journalist Michael Crook, who actually has written an article claiming that -- wait for it -- rape doesn't exist. That is not a misprint. He has actually written a book, about that subject.

I refuse to go on any further about this, because in my opinion -- having, you know, a moral compass and a working brain -- is that high school sports should NEVER take precedence over someone's basic right to have their physical space respected. Instead of teaching girls not to get drunk, or to -- for fuck's sake -- to carry A GUN to avoid getting raped, how about these chauvinistic cockscabs teach their sons TO NOT RAPE ANYONE. You know, TO BE A MAN!

And should Mr. Crook or anyone on his side STILL claim there's no such thing as rape... I personally know several people who were in this girl's position. Some were even younger, when they were raped. For that matter, American prisons ALONE have had countless PROVEN instances of rape. I fucking dare Crook and his supporters to claim to EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THESE VICTIMS, IN PERSON, that their attacks never happened.

Or is it a lot more manly and decent for you to just keep the wool over your eyes?

Conservative Loves Child Porn

So if you haven't heard, a prominent Canadian conservative named Tom Flanagan, has been in some major shit lately. The University of Calgary professor, mentor of Stephen Harper and Danielle Smith, and once described "most prominent member of the Reform Party", wasvideotaped at a Q&A session, re-affirming an allegedly old position of his that people shouldn't be going to jail "for their taste in pictures"... referring to child porn.

Immediately after this went viral, even though some right-wing pundits (ie. Jonathan Kay of the National Post) and apparently deranged academics have been defending him, he did get ditched by Wildrose Leader Smith, the CBC (where he was a panelist on "Power & Politics"), and disavowed by Emperor Harper.* To those still stupid enough to defend him, I'd like to point out that not only has Flanagan stated that he himself has viewed such images, not only has he defended images that don't exactly depict children in happy times, but he has also said that he's on a mailing list for NAMBLA -- an organization that promotes sex between grown men and little boys. No, I'm serious, that really is what they do.

* (incidently, Harper being caught associated with multiple frauds, a spousal abuser/alleged rapist, and now self-admitted pedophile, probably shouldn't be referred to anymore as a political or moral genius)

BUT WAIT! It gets better. Today, this scumbag has actually whined on TV, that the real blame for this mess belongs to -- wait for it -- someone asking him a "curveball question" during the Q&A, and supposedly taping it in secret.

First Question: what kind of a professor isn't prepared for unusual questions, when speaking in public?

Second Question: what kind of high-profile figure, doesn't just automatically assume that he is being videotaped at public events?

Third Question: WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR HEAD AT, WHEN YOU DEFEND SEX ABUSE AND FEDERAL CRIMES, IN A BRAIN FART?

Honestly, I'm not sure it's possible to sink any lower, on the Piece of Shit Scale -- and I'm currently seeing millionaires who work part-time, blame the poor for needing welfare. This is absolutely indefensible, and frankly anyone who says otherwise, should probably have their computers checked by the RCMP. As long as the right-wing says or defends this kind of bullshit, they have no right to complain about the supposedly loose morals of liberals and the general gay community. By their own standards, Tom Flanagan should be on trial right now, facing a life sentence or worse.

Ted Nugent to "counter" the State of the Union

Okay, WHAT?

So, the Republican/Tea Party's rebuttal to the State of the Union address, will be delivered this year, by Ted Nugent.

A burnt-out rocker, who shit his pants to get out of the draft, who is an admitted pedophile, who can't open his mouth anymore without making the kinds of remarks that only get applause from the KKK, who brandished two MACHINE GUNS on stage at a concert, and who has personally threatened to kill the president.

In a little over a decade, the GOP has gone from George W. Bush, to Sarah Palin, to Mitt Romney, and now this? I know that conservatives don't believe in evolution, but this is nuts!

Idle No More

Despite (once again) crowning Stephen Harper the Douchebag of the Year, there was something I couldn't mention in the video, simply because of lack of time. It's not much of a secret that -- like most countries with an aboriginal population -- Canada treats its native peoples like third-class citizens. This is by no means unique to Harper; possibly the most shameful chapter in our history, involves the federal government pretty much abducting Indian children, from 1884 to 1948, and abusing them in boarding schools to try to wipe out their heritage. It's as close as we've ever come to ethnic cleansing -- and ironically, something that Harper once apologized for.

Beyond that, Harper's attitude towards the First Nations peoples of Canada has been.... to do pretty much nothing. At all. One of his first acts as prime minister, was scrapping a treaty that (theoretically anyway) would have done something to improve the Third World conditions of native reservations (including an almost total lack of education, infrastructure, clean water, adequate shelter, job opportunities, etc.). The only other thing that I can think of, that he's done, was effectively take over the administration of the Attawapiskat reserve... and charging the DIRT POOR VILLAGE thousands of dollars for that privilege.

Because of this -- among other things that I'm not qualified to comment on -- the reserve's Chief, Theresa Spence, has gone on a hunger strike. She's demanding a meeting with Harper, as well as Governor General David Johnson, to get to the bottom of the issues there. This has sparked SEVERAL protests nationwide, considerable media coverage, and INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION. So typically, Harper's response has been absolutely nothing.

Some Conservative lackies -- when they haven't been racist as hell -- have mocked Spence and asked that she stop the hunger strike. As many right-wingers do, they completely miss the point. This is on Harper and Johnson's heads, because they are effectively the leaders of this country -- and especially because the federal government has pretty much annexed Spence's village. Leaving aside the piss poor optics of REFUSING TO MEET WITH A LEADER ON A HUNGER STRIKE, this whole issue is Ottawa's responsibility (and these people say that liberals and natives are lazy -- pot calling kettle, anyone?), and it's not like Harper's got much going on during the holidays -- ONE MEETING is all that Spence is asking for. At this point, she might be happy with dropping in to wish her a happy new year.

It's a shame that Stephen Harper would never read this article, or personally respond to it, because here's a question I'd love to ask him, point blank: it's no secret that most Canadians hate your guts, and regardless of your rhetoric, Canada's reputation abroad is getting WORSE because of you. How do you think Canada and the world would react, if you become the only First World leader in ages -- if not EVER -- to be PERSONALLY responsible for the death of a peaceful protester?  And an Indian protester, to boot!

Probably the only thing that worries me at all, about the New Year, is how this might unfold, if Chief Spence starves to death, all because Harper can't be bothered to act like a human being. The people are angry right now, and the world is watching. You would think someone as power-hungry and politically savvy as Harper, would understand the dangers of creating a martyr -- if she dies, Harper may come to wish that he'd resigned a long time ago.

2012 Douchebag of the Year

THX-1138 (review)

What the heck is THX-1138, you might be asking? It's the feature directorial debut of one George Walton Lucas Jr., expanding on an avart-garde short film that he did in film school. It was produced by Francis Ford Coppola, as the first feature from their American Zoetrope independent studio... and pretty much buried it, just as fast. Warner Bros., the distributors and financiers, hated the finished movie so much that they re-cut it, gutted the marketing budget, and demanded back the money they'd given to Zoetrope for future projects.

What's it about? Well... that's a harder question, in a way. It's presented in a rather obtuse way, but the short version is that sometime in the future, society has become so sterile and commercialized, that pretty much all we live for is to buy things and do what authorities tell us to do. People are drugged into feeling no emotions whatsoever, religion only tells them to show up for work and keep buying things, and no one even has proper names; THX 1138 is the main character's name. His roommate/love interest is named LUH, and a foil for them is named SEN. Every one is shaved bald, and wearing what is basically a pair of white pajamas, there's almost no colour or detail in anything... pretty much the only good thing you can say about this society, is that there's no crime as we know it.

But it is a crime to have feelings. Or to have sex -- you're supposed to get it off with holograms and mechanical pumps (it's rather sad that THAT might have come true, more than anything else in the movie). THX and LUH do both, after she talks him into skipping their drugs, and when it causes accidents at THX's robot assembly job, they quickly find themselves in prison. They then decide they have to leave, once and for all.

I'm not sure how much that synopsis just made this thing sound like a thriller, but to be honest it's not a particularly exciting or intense movie. It's very much an expensive art movie -- in the sense that it is very cerebral, discusses intellectual issues in abstract ways, and makes very little literal sense. This is especially so during the middle section, addressing THX and LUH in prison. There's a semi-comical sequence where unseen doctors manage to make THX go into convulsions by pushing buttons... it's only when you see the movie again, that it would probably dawn on you that some device was presumably inserted into him, during a medical test preceding this. Just plain laughable, is how THX "escapes" from the prison itself -- HE JUST WALKS OUT THE FREAKING DOOR. There are guards everywhere, fully capable of subduing him, not to mention a total lack of architectural landmarks, and HE JUST WALKS AWAY! Accompanied by a a HOLOGRAM WHO'S BECOME REAL... yet we never find out HOW. Thematically, it works just fine, but if we're meant as an audience to believe that this is really happening, I'm sorry but my bullshit meter breaks really damn fast.

All of that being said, it is a rather unnerving movie overall, and it's actually quite well acted (with Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance carrying much of the picture). The dialogue... well, good luck making sense of it. You see, the single-biggest problem with THX-1138 is that there is no proxy for the audience -- every single person is firmly a part of this future world, so there's no reason to explain anything (which Lucas is historically reluctant to do, anyway). I understand that the point was to be disorienting, and artistically they were running with the concept of this being "a movie shot on location in the future", but realistically that only works so well. To give Lucas some credit, he seemed to have learned his lesson by the time he did Star Wars, as that movie featured characters far enough out of the loop that there was excuse for a bit of exposition to help the audience get by. Hell, even the prequels had enough sense to do that!

With this being a George Lucas picture, it probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that he changed the thing at least twice, since it was originally released. The home video releases restored scenes that were cut by Warners' (the theatrical cut hasn't been seen since the early 70s), and more recently the DVD version used CGI to expand the locations and fill in some gaps in the story. Unlike the infamous Special Edition changes to the Star Wars movies, these were generally well received, and I don't have any huge problem with them (apart from the CGI sometimes drawing too much attention to itself). In fact, on occasion they help make certain scenes more clear. However, I do think that making every establishing shot look ten times bigger, was a thematic mistake -- we're meant to believe that this society is oppressive as hell (and in fact, it turns out that this whole civilization is underground), and personally I think that was more effectively conveyed with the more confined shots in the earlier releases.

(if you're wondering, the non-altered version isn't on DVD, but someone has digitized the VHS versions of those scenes and put up comparison videos on YouTube)

This movie is rather hard to find, even now, but if you can find a copy of this cheapy (or if you can find it online) I suggest giving it a look, if you like intellectual sci-fi movies. Just keep in mind that besides Lucas' handicaps with dialogue and discomfort with actors, maybe his biggest failing as a filmmaker is that he's a little too smart for his own good.

So Obama's Won Again...

I'm going to do my best to NOT make this a "bad winner" rant, but I already know that the Tea Party is throwing conniptions over Barack Obama winning re-election, so I'm going to try to spell this out in as non-partisan a way as possible.

Formally, America has been around for 236 years. In that time, it has survived a full-blown revolution, harsh weathers and hard summers, smallpox, polio, cholera, bird flu, e coli. and AIDS. It has survived the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, and countless battles with Indian tribes (which I'll refrain from elaborating on, for these purposes). It has survived two World Wars (one of which nearly wiped out everyone outside of Germany), the Cold War, and various other conflicts of varying and debatable importance.

It has survived the Great Depression, and several other recessions that rivaled it. It has survived the 92 percent tax rate on the rich, it has survived Reagonomics, it has survived various labour crises and it has survived spikes in oil prices. It has survived 9/11, Pearl Harbour, Waco, Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Atlanta Olympic bombing, abortion clinic bombings, and more acts of domestic terrorism than I care to count. It has survived the divisions of the Vietnam War, talk radio, Fox News, and the sabotage of the economy for petty reasons.

It has survived Watergate, Zippergate, and multiple assassinations (don't get any ideas, though). It has survived the draft, the Patriot Act, the NDAA, Gitmo, and the TSA. It has survived the red and brown scares. It has survived Prohibition, legalized divorce, interracial marriage, interfaith marriage, and the War on Drugs. It has survived McCarthyism and the Monkey Trial. And it has survived the civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, the gay rights movement, and the so-called "Moral Majority".

Yet you guys are worried about one community organizer? Whose only "crime" is that he seems to genuinely care about everyone in America? And on top of that, it just seems to be because he's black, and his father was Arabic?
Are you serious?

America has already survived four years of Barack Obama, and will probably weather another four years just fine -- just because it's already survived MUCH worse. You don't have to agree with the guy, or like him personally, but if you honestly think that he's going to destroy the country, you REALLY need to see a psychiatrist -- and hey, it's more affordable now.

All sarcasm aside, the best advice I can give to the far-right is this: shut off the hateboxes, and step outside of your little corner of the country. See other points of view, and listen to the people around you, even if you'd otherwise disagree with them. Liberalism may not be the answer to all problems, but it's hardly the mental illness or capital crime that some of you think it is. At the very least, the more you learn to tolerate others' views, the better off you're going to be. Making the country -- or world -- a nicer place to live in, won't be easy work, but it's DEFINITELY something worth trying.

Do you have the nerve to?