Readers, I do what I can to keep my fame days contemporary, but with Switzerland pretty much legalizing apartheid, bloody crackdowns in Egypt, and network giant Cisco cutting 5% of it’s workforce, finding something positive today just isn’t happening. So I figured I’d reach back a bit and pull out a shining beacon of hope from days gone by- my favorite music artist of all time, Johnny Cash.
Yes, he is looking at your soul.
Posted in America, Fame Day, morality, music
Tagged Carter Cash, cash, country, drugs, Hurt, Johnny Cash, June Cash, man in black, Metallica, music, native americans, NIN, nine inch nails, nixon, prison, San Quentin, social justice, song, Trent Reznor, Vietnam, vietnam war
2014 will see the XXII Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia. Or at least, such is the current proposal of the Russian state and the Olympic committee. Personally, I’d like to keep that from happening.
Here’s why:
Russia isn’t exactly a beacon of freedom and human rights today (or since 1929, for that matter). In spite of having the basic decency to offer former-NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden something of a safe haven, the modern Russian Federation has more than a few dents in its reputation.
And its cars…
While massive corruption has been an issue for a long time, and while Russia is no more free from the ugly face of white supremacism than any of its fellow European nations, a few recent events stand out as especially damning. Continue reading
Posted in Economy, Europe, lgbt, money, morality, politics, sports
Tagged 2014, apartheid, Assad, BDS, bill, Boycott, David Cameron, duma, Edward Snowden, Equality, gay, Homosexual, human-rights, law, neo-nazi, Obama, politics, propaganda, Pussy Riot, Russia, Russian, Snowden, Sochi, sochi russia, Stephen Fry, Stoli, Stolichnaya, Syria, Winter Olympics
In 2011 I wrote about rape as a term not to be used casually out of context. In 2012 I wrote about rape as a subject for comedy. In 2013, and in light of a few recent events, I am writing about rape as a storytelling device.
Mark Millar is famous for books such as Superman: Red Son, and Jupiter’s
Legacy, but probably most well-known to the non-comic-book-reading-public as the man responsible for Kick-Ass and its sequels. He is also a writer who has featured rape in a number of his works. I’m not going to go through the process of listing them all, but instead am going to present a quote he gave regarding his opinion on using rape in writing:
The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don’t really think it matters. It’s the same as, like, a decapitation. It’s just a horrible act to show that somebody’s a bad guy.
Now I could begin quoting a number of very smart people who responded to Millar’s words, but this isn’t that kind of post. If a list of that sort is what you’re into, I’d like to direct you to this article on the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex. A better compilation of tweets and quotes about this specific subject would be difficult to find. Continue reading
Posted in comics, feminism, morality, sex, writing
Tagged comics, decapitation, Gail Simone, horrible act, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, Mark Millar, murder, rape, taboo, Women in Refrigerators, writing
This hasn’t been a great week.
My pick for the Zimbabwe elections lost to a 90-year old autocrat, white nose syndrome is devastating the American bat population, and the recent attempt to defund the NSA’s domestic spying programs has failed in Congress.
And in spite of all that, I’m going to be discussing issue I’ve been wanting to take an axe to for quite some time now.
Yep- Zionism. Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Islam, morality, news, politics, race, religion, Shame Day, sports
Tagged Arab, Army, bigotry, birth control, children, Culture, Ethiopian Jews, Fascism, Fascist, hasidic, idf, Immigrants, indefinite detention, israel arab, israeli palestinian conflict, loyalty oath, middle-east, minors, mizrahi, mugabe, Nationalism, orthodox, palestine, palestinian, prison, racism, racist, reformed, religon, segregated buses, segregation, sephardic, t-shirt, tsvangarai, ultra orthodox, zimbabwe, zimbabwe elections, zionism
Last week, Evan and I discussed the recent move by the Cameron administration in the UK to block pornography from British internet servers by default (it can be accessed through request). As Evan is currently on tour in the Mexican state of Sinaloa as his luchador alter-ego, “El Astronauta Más Sexy Y Famoso,” he’s asked me to write today’s post, and I’ve decided to pick up on last week’s talk.
We had blasted a few arguments back and forth (with me arguing that the ban did far more harm than good) but one line of reasoning that I didn’t get a chance to use was this:
There’s a lot worse stuff out there than porn. Continue reading
Posted in advertisement, advertising, America, Economy, feminism, media, money, morality, pornography, sex, television
Tagged 3rd wave, bigotry, blackface, Block, Cameron, capitalism, casualties, cnn, commercials, consumerism, David Cameron, Fear, feminism, Feminist, Fox, ignorance, injection, Iraq War, low t, magazine, porn, porn ban, pornography, profit, racism, sex, sex positive, sexism, sexuality, Tabloid, testosterone, the sun, the west, TV, UK, US, women
In my attempt to err on the side of caution in regards to confidentiality, I rarely speak about my job, let alone write about it. Such is the nature of social work. Even so, the subject of today’s post has been preying on mind for a while now, and while I’m still going to not disclose the entirety of what I do, I am going to put it out there that I am (essentially) a vocational counselor for individuals who have criminal backgrounds. I just want to show that I do have some basic understand of some of the things I’ll be discussing, and I’m not speaking simply out of speculation. So what are we talking about today? Crime, criminals, and why you shouldn’t be afraid of either.
Except the Corleones, who are the Lannisters, but without the inbreeding… Oh wait- wasn’t there something up with the cousins in the 3rd movie? I try to suppress it…
Posted in America, crime, education, media, morality, politics
Tagged America, Arson, Assaults, career criminal, crime, Crime of Passion, criminal, Drug Offenses, drugs, DUI, Dumb Criminals, Education, FBI, GED, Highschool, incarcerated, jail, law, murder, nancy grace, organized crime, politics, pundit, Random, rape, Report, Sexual Assault, Statistics, USA, Violence
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