GORDON: Up there! In the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…! It’s…!
It’s a cheesy rehash of the same joke we closed out on last time!
EVAN: How dare you, sir.
GORDON: Citizens, today our topic of discussion is Superman, and to a lesser extent, superheroes in general- though you could hardly go wrong to kick off a discussion on the subject by starting with the Big Blue Boy Scout.
Who, for the record, I despise. Continue reading
Posted in comics, crime, Culture War Correspondence, government, morality
Tagged Batman, comic books, crime, Culture War Correspondence, DC, duty, Green Lantern, Last Son of Krypton, Marvel, might is right, morality, obligation, power, Reed Richards, Reed Richards Is Useless, responsibility, rights, Superman, with great power comes great responsibility
EVAN: Rooooooooooxaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnne!
Ladies, gentlemen, and others, Gordon and I have come together today to discuss, you guessed it, The Police. You could argue that there are other greater bands from the late 70s, but you would be wrong.
GORDON: I’d like to start off right now with a story about a recent experience I had with the police, if I may-
EVAN: By all means. What was Sting like in person?
GORDON: I wouldn’t know- I only heard ’em screaming at my next door neighbor through the door.
See, readers, I live in what nobody would describe as “good neighborhood”. It’s certainly not as bad as some places, but it’s definitely not a place that anyone wants to be.
In fact, the police shaking down my neighbor for one of his “Known Associates” stated just that. To quote one of ’em “I f-cking hate this [apartment] complex.”
Needless to say, it didn’t exactly inspire confidence within me that if I ever needed help, the boys-in-blue would have my back… Continue reading
Posted in America, Asia, crime, Culture War Correspondence, morality
Tagged accountability, cops, Corruption, crime, Culture War Correspondence, drugs, elected, police, police brutality, power, protection, responsibility, Roxanne, safety, to serve and protect
Not so long ago a friend sent me an article called “6 Reasons Female Nudity can be Powerful” by Soraya Chemaly. He wanted to know what I thought of it.
To give you some context I should tell you that this friend and I have debated on issues regarding sexuality and nudity since we were teenagers. Back in high school we would have probably taken polar opposite stances on an issue like this. I was a fairly indignant teenager who wanted her gender to be taken seriously, and since he was a teenage boy and boobs held a certain appeal for him I didn’t think his opinion could ever be unbiased. While we continue to debate on these issues now and then, I think we are both coming to slightly less extreme, and maybe more realistic, perspectives. And when it comes to this article I have to agree with him. Female nudity can be a powerful tool.
According to legend, Lady Godiva rode through town naked in order to convince her husband to lower his taxes on the people of Coventry. This rendition is by Jules Joseph Lefebvre
Posted in feminism, media, politics, pornography, sex
Tagged advertising, anger, boobs, breasts, debat, Femen, feminism, feminists, Girls, Hijab, Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, Justin Timberlake, media, Muslim, Naked Ladies, Niger Delta, nude, nudity, police, politics, power, Problem with Cute, Problem with Pink, Protest, pubic hair on manniquins, Salon, sex, Soraya Chemblay, Victoria's secret, women
This is the final panel of one of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes strips, though as you can see it works just fine on its own as well. Ignorance is an issue. It always has been, and it probably always will be. The issue is that today it seems that misunderstandings about the nature of tolerance and free speech, as well as the prevalence of Postmodernism, have really given it a haven the likes of which hasn’t existed before. But we’re not here to dissect just where ignorance is coming from in modern culture, we’re here to talk about some of the absolutely dangerous myths that it’s producing and why they are just plan wrong.
I. “Vaccines Cause Autism”
Chances are pretty high that you’re already familiar with this one, and while most folks are fully aware of just how untrue this myth is, it remains nevertheless one of the most dangerous ones out there today. I’m not just talking about the preventable deaths of thousands of people (which is justification, of course, in and of itself) but about the potential damage it can cause. You’re not just exposing yourself to infection, you’re allowing yourself to serve as a potential carrier to infect others.
And of course, this is exactly what’s happening now.
See NPR’s article on the subject here.
Look, I could spend all day rehashing article after article after scientific study demonstrating that no, vaccines do not cause autism, and no, the substances which make up most vaccines are more prevalent in plenty of other substances- but let us, just for a moment, entertain this superstition as being real.
So what if vaccines can cause autism (which they don’t)? Continue reading
Posted in America, bizarreness, health, morality, news, politics, science
Tagged austism, coal, compromise, Darwin, disease, drilling, dumb, fracking, ignorance, Iran, israel, mining, moderate, moderation, myth, myths, nuclear, nuke, nukes, plague, polio, postmodernism, power, recant, smallpox, stupid, TB, truth, vaccines, weapons
Readers, as I was in the middle of researching my originally intended Fame Day I was interrupted by the sound of pounding outside my door. It was the cops, interrogating my next door neighbor about the last time he saw someone. I stood by the door, listening- though the primary cop speaking was yelling so loudly I really didn’t have to. Of course, it just made me extra sure I got his exact words:
“I hate this fucking complex.”
“I will give you shit until you give me what I want.”
Other, similar statements followed- though I try to observe Evan’s general rule of keeping profanity to a minimum. The neighbor repeatedly said that he hadn’t seen they guy they were after, which only resulted in both more shouting from the cop and, from the sound of it, him stomping into the apartment. Without a warrant or the consent of the my neighbor, which constitutes a violation of his 4th amendment rights.
A few years ago I took a fantastic Political Science course at my local community college.
Unfortunately, Señor Chang did not go to my college.
Our professor wanted everyone to love Political Science as much as he did, so he gave us a lot of freedom on what we would write our major class papers on. That’s how I ended up writing a paper called “Advertising, the Gateway Porn: How Hypersexualization Undermines Cross-Gender Relationships.”
Last week I tried to use some of my research from that paper to cover a topic Gordon introduced in a previous post, how advertising can be just as damaging as pornography, but I quickly realized there was far too much information for just one post. That’s why today I’m going to continue with the topic of sexualization in advertising. Continue reading
Posted in advertising, feminism, media, sex
Tagged advertising, Canadian Women's foundation, cute, d&g gang bang, date rape, dismemberment, feminspire, fetish perfume, gender, hard to get, innocence, Jean Kilbourne, Jezebel, Killing us softly, men's rights, naive, no means no, objectification, Political Science, power, rape culture, sexualization of children, sexy, status, Upskirt Tumblr
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