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I was quite dismayed yesterday to find out about the new film Chapter 27 which is currently in production. The film portrays the jerk of all jerks in the days leading up to John Lennon's assassination. The title alludes to the 26-chapter novel Catcher in the Rye (ironically one of my favorite novels) which Lennon's killer used to explain his motivations for the murder (with the 27th chapter being the final, unwritten chapter sealed by the killer's actions). Typically the outrage over the event of John Lennon's murder runs so deep that his fans almost always refrain from even mentioning his murderer's name (as I have done in this article), especially because of the killer's desire for fame, so I'm sure the making of this film will cause some controversy among those who care the most about Lennon's life and career. While it's true that we can never deny the senseless murder of John Lennon, is it too much to ask that filmmakers at least refrain from putting his killer in the spotlight?
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There seemed to be quite a bit of controversy stirring today over the President's comments on the role religion played in his nominating Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice. While he didn't come out and directly say so (his words were "part of Harriet Mier's life is her religion" when asked about her background), it is quite obvious that religion did play a part in Bush's nomination. Bush has said in the past that he chose Miers and Roberts because they share his values, and Bush makes no qualms about his Christian beliefs. What I don't understand is why we should expect the President to do anything other than choose someone who shares his same belief system. I can't see why it's news that Bush, a conservative Christian Republican, chose a conservative Christian Republican for the Supreme Court. Who else would he nominate, Al Sharpton? If I were president, I would definitely make religion a deciding factor in a choice for Supreme Court justice. I certainly wouldn't nominate an evangelical Christian conservative because I don't share those fundamental beliefs. It seems to me that these nominations were determined when Bush won the election in 2004. It's one of the perks of being the President, and it just so happened that Pat Robertson prayed out two during Bush's stay in office. That's just how it goes.
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For the past several days, I've been enjoying the new Fiona Apple album "Extraordinary Machine." I had downloaded the leaked version a while back, and am now happy to have paid my few dollars for this wonderful CD (even though some of the songs have undergone some changes, not for the better). I ended up buying the DualDisc version, which has some great video clips. The improved sound quality over the MP3s I had in addition to the nice DVD extras definitely made it worth the purchase.
In case you don't know the story, here's some background info: Epic (Fiona Apple's record label) had no plans to release "Extraordinary Machine," claiming that it had no commercial appeal, but they quickly changed their minds once the entire album leaked out on the Internet and was rabidly snatched up by her fans. Today it's Amazon's #2 seller in Music (despite Slate magazine's prediction to the contrary).
The whole debacle over the release of Apple's new CD just seems to be another example of how piracy of intellectual property is actually driving some industries. A similar phenomenon has happened in the video game arena; re-issues of classic arcade games that have been emulated on PC using MAME for years are constantly being released for all the major consoles. Turner Broadcasting System has started a new service called GameTap, which lets users download and play old video games from virtually every platform, for a small monthly fee, of course. Nintendo is set to launch downloads of their entire back catalog when their new Revolution console ships next year to counter the rampant ROM trading of classic NES, SNES, and N64 games on the web. Though they may deny it, it sure seems to me that piracy of commercially unavailable materials is sending a wake-up call to the industry; in these instances, they seem to actually be responding to existing demand among consumers instead of trying to create it using hype and marketing nonsense. What a concept.
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Here is a recent dialog between my wife Marjorie and the woman at the register where I got my oil changed this weekend. Now I know how it feels to face a master typist. I feel so humbled.
Marjorie: Here you go [hands her the receipt]
Register Woman: That'll be $28.34. What are you paying with?
Marjorie: Credit card.
RW: Do you want to do debit or credit? [Takes the card]
Marjorie: Oh, you can do it as debit.
RW: Okay, enter your PIN.
[Marjorie enters PIN. Silence ensues.]
RW: Did you push the green button?
Marjorie: Oh, no [pushes green button]
RW: What's on the Enter button of every keyboard?
Marjorie: Um...[looks blankly]
Me: Are you talking about the arrow?
RW: That's on every keyboard [She points to the green button]. It means Enter.
Me: Yeah, that's from the old days of the typewriter when it was the Return key, indicating that it returns the carriage to the next...
RW: [Holds up her nasty-ass computer keyboard] See? It's on the Enter button.
Me: Yeah, I know, I...[I begin to say something about how I work with computers every day, then give up]
Marjorie: Thanks [Takes receipt]
[RW goes back to reading her romance novel from the 80's]
End of scene.
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Scott Stevens, a former TV weatherman, appeared on Lou Dobbs tonight with a very interesting theory: hurricanes Katrina and Rita were not natural disasters, but quite unnatural. For, you see, the storms didn't just happen. They were created by, here it comes: terrorists. Yes, terrorists. On his web site Weather Wars, Stevens tells how the Japanese mafia group Yazuka teamed up with the Russian government in the early 1990's to develop a weapon which can create catastrophes such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. This guy is either a conspiracy theorist nut that would put even Oliver Stone to shame, or he's the prophet we'll all wish we listened to when we're pulling the tornado-torn, lava-laden Empire State Building out of the giant canyon. You know, kind of like that crazy guy that annoys you at the mall with the religious tracts.
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When Ashley Smith, the woman held hostage by Brian Nicolas after Nicolas shot and killed several people at an Atlanta courthouse, claimed that she convinced Nicolas to turn himself in after sharing God and The Purpose-Driven Life, many religious groups and media outlets rallied around Smith and this apparently miraculous work of literature. Now, months later, Smith reveals in her new book "Unlikely Angel" that Jesus wasn't the only thing she shared with Nicolas; she apparently gave him a little crystal meth, too. Apparently Smith herself suffered from drug addiction, having been in and out of rehab several times in the past. Armed with this new information, I wonder how many of the religious folks who praised Smith and "The Purpose-Driven Life" will now speak of the wonders of methamphetamine and its ability to show people the error of their ways. Smith herself has even claimed that God spoke to her while she was driving under the influence of drugs; God told her to let go of the steering wheel, which she did, causing her car to crash. Unlikely Angel indeed.
Link: CNN.com: Smith gave alleged courthouse shooter drugs
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 There's a battle raging among local TV stations these days. Over what, you ask? Is the conflict over whose news is the most timely, the most accurate, or the most important to the station's viewers? No, none of the above. It's about whose Doppler radar weather system has the biggest number at the end. The local station WNDU-TV in South Bend, IN has Super Doppler 16, with the number seemingly corresponding to the station's being channel 16 on the dial. Okay, so that makes some sense. WFSB in Hartford, CT, however, boasts a Doppler 3000 system which, while not super, does have a bigger number at the end. Finally, not to be outdone, is Charleston, SC's own (drumroll please) Super Doppler 5000! Yes, folks, that's 2000 more than WFSB's antiquated weather technology. Seriously, though, what do these numbers mean? I remember back in the 1980's and 90's when everything was "Something 2000," alluding to the next millennium to make a product sound futuristic. Of course, many of the companies and products (such as Gateway 2000) dropped that nomenclature once the year 2000 rolled around. Five-thousand, though, makes no sense to me. Are they claiming that they're actually 3000 years ahead of their competition? Will this numbers battle escalate into an all-out war? Will it reach a point where the numerical suffixes must be given in scientific notation? Or perhaps one day the whole conflict will end like arguments did in kindergarten: "Oh yeah, well I have Super-duper Doppler Infinity!" Only time will tell.
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The Vatican is now preparing a document which will ban gay priests, even if they are celibate. Since the 1970's, Catholics, unlike other even more intolerant sects of Christianity (such as the Baptists, who believe homosexuality is a choice and that gays can be converted to heterosexuals), believe that homosexuality is a true orientataion, and the real sin is the homogenital act. Just like it is a sin for two heterosexuals to engage in sex without the possiblity of procreation, it is a sin for two homosexuals to engage in sex because no procreation can take place. Okay, all this makes a little more sense than the Baptists' logic, but the new ban of homosexuals from the priesthood still has me a bit confused. It seems as if the Vatican is saying that it is okay for heterosexual men who are heterosexuals by nature to be attracted to women but not act on the attraction, but it is not okay for homosexual men who are homosexual by nature to be attracted to men while not acting on that attraction. Because Catholicism does not make the distinction between homosexual acts and heterosexual acts without the possibility of procreation, where does this logic come from? Apparently the document is really meant to address not the problem of homosexual acts between a priest and another consenting adult, but to address the recent epidemic of child molestation in the priesthood. The scientific community repeatedly publishes studies that show homosexuality and pedophelia have no link, yet the Catholic church seemingly does not make this distinction. My opinion has always been that the disproportionate number of gays and child molesters in the priesthood can be explained by the nature of the priesthood itself. If a man finds himself attracted to other men or young boys, what can he do to avoid these temptations? What better closet to hide in than the priesthood, where it is forbidden by God to act on those temptations. Of course, the threat of God's wrath still doesn't always overcome one's immediate biological and sexual urges, so acts of child molestation do occur in the priesthood. All of this gay-bashing by the Catholic church seems to me to be a misdirected effort to curb child molestation in the priesthood, yet only further proves to me the rampant contradictions still present in even the most progressive forms of Christianity and the futility of reconciling ancient "holy" documents like the Bible with the complexity of the modern world.
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First there was Cindy Sheehan protesting the war in Iraq; now there's a mom in New York challenging the RIAA after the association filed a lawsuit against her for pirating music over the Internet. Unlike most who have simply rolled over and paid the ridiculous $7,500 in damages to the RIAA, Patricia Santangelo is taking the case to court. Now I'm all for paying artists for music they create, and even paying the record companies for their work in distributing the music to the masses, but I think what Santangelo is doing is to be commended. It's about time somebody stood up to the thugs in the RIAA; after all, the RIAA and the MPAA are doing other nefarious things behind our backs which violate our Fair Use rights as US citizens and which go unchecked due to the ruckus they raise over the P2P scene. What strikes me as the most interesting, though, and the reason I'm writing this post, is the fact that it's moms, not the youth, fighting the power. Where are the demonstrations on college campuses and the great folk songs denouncing these types of things like we saw in the 1960s and 1970s? Are teens just not affected by today's issues like they were back then? Is it because the US draft has been replaced by a more subtle and marginal backdoor draft, and because it's the parents getting slapped with the lawsuits for the actions of their children? Or could it be that middle-aged women have just now discovered Rage Against the Machine? It does seem to have one very positive side effect, though; while Hillary Clinton continues to fight the tired battle of fixing other people's kids, the New Moms are taking care of their own.
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