Tuesday, March 21, 2006

 

Is an attack imminent?

By The Erudite Redneck

"Isaac Hayes Controversy Continues," the AOL headline says. "Is Scientologist returning to South Park?"

Here we go again. With ALL that's going on, and going wrong, in the world and with this country, we've let our attention span get away from us again, and I think it started with the Dubai ports deal.

So many people were so caught by surprise by the story, and so caught up in the story -- and some are so embarrassed that they were caught by surprise and caught up in the story -- that lots of people just tuned the hell out again.

Myself, I'm still agin' any foreign gubmint controlling the ins and outs and tos and fros of our ports. Period.

It's all part of my unabashed protectionist stance on trade and the economy in general -- and my main bitch about Bubba: Part of his triangulation was to be "conservative" on "free" trade. SHAFTA and all that.

There is "us," and there is "them" -- and NEITHER should bow to Mammon above all.

My own attention span has snapped, too, though.

It's no fun picking on the alleged president. Like makin' fun of a Special Olympics kid. Wait -- that's an insult to Special Olympics. ... It's like making fun of your basic eighth-grade boy tryin' to keep up with a graduate seminar.

No fun picking on the Republican Party. I tend to turn away when I see anyone shittin' their britches.

No fun cheering on the Democrats -- they lost what was left of their soul when they left Sen. Feingold hanging out last week with his proposal to censure the alleged president.

Hope, yet, springs eternal. The righty-rights seem to think that the Dems have no chance this November without a "viable alternative" to the ransacking the Repubs and their alleged president have been up to these long years.

Nah. If my sewer were backed up here in the house, I'd hire someone, perhaps in desperation, on their mere claim to be able to come in and clean the place up -- THEN I'd listen to whatever ideas they might have for fixing the problem itself.

Stopping the shit when it's rising fast is the most important thing.

... A ramble, yes. ... Newswise, today makes me think of 9/10 for some reason. And that makes me wary that another attack is imminent. You know, to "pull us all together" again and all.

As if. The right-wing leadership of this country pissed away one chance at internal unity and global empathy. No reason to think they wouldn't do it again.

--ER

Comments:
Um, are you saying we can't all rally around the fact that we're losing Chef? I WANT to see Tom Cruise shut in a closet, myself. There's a coverup afoot. Maybe not as severe as the world situation, but come on, even while being vigilant life must go on. We can't remain hyperfocused (not all of us at the same time) on the evil in the world. Otherwise, our life isn't worth living anyway.
 
Something that confused me a bit about the Feingold thing: a lot of news stories focused on the angle that Andrew Jackson was the last Pres to be censured.
But that isn't true: wasn't censure what the House finally settled on with Clinton, since they didn't have the votes to impeach?
 
Clinton was impeached. There were not enough votes to remove him from office.
 
Correct that... he was impeached. There were not enough votes on either charge to CONVICT him.
 
Since you personally had no clue 9/11 would happen, how can you sense that it is about to happen again?

I'm not trying to be combative, just probing for what your sensors are, and whether your metaphor is apt.
 
Alien ghost messing with our lives on the earth? Giant ghost catchers hovering in the sky? Buying your way to enlightenment? And what was the name of that dude that threw the frozen alien bodies into the Hawaian volcanoe anyway? Scientology is one messed up "religion". Elron he was the man. The con man.

In a similar vein, I hear that the Albinos Organization is unhappy with the stereotyping of albinoes as portrayed in The Da Vinci Code. (all albinoes are six foot monks?) I guess they never heard of "Behold a pale rider", after all the albinoe monk was the one doing all of the killing. Artistic liscence isn't what it used to be.
 
Anon, good question.

What I meant is that immediately after 9/11, almost everyone seemed to realize how vacuous and shallow most of the news had gotten, right up the morning news shows on 9/11 itself, and how easy-to-distract most of the country seemed to have gotten. Something about the Isaac Hayes-South Park story struck me as very similar. Could be that I totally miss the pop-culture moment going on here, though, since I've never watched more than a few minutes of any South Park episode.
 
However, I do realize, too, that corrolation is not causation -- so any perceived similarities in the times are just that: perceived.
 
Oh, well, you see the Isaac Hayes thing is important in its own right (and I'm not being silly here). It's a bit of a free speech issue, if you want to get down to the basics of it. South Park is known far and wide for its irreverent look at society, particularly religion and moral values. Hey, it's from the viewpoint of 8-year-old boys, so of course it's more fart jokes and pushing the limits.

However, Isaac Hayes, the sexy-deep voice of Chef, who has cashed paychecks for a long while, now has stepped out because the show is taking aim at Scientology. He's saying he can't agree with the show's attack "on religion." Well, people are pointing out that he didn't have these qualms when the religion under attack was Christianity. But you see, Isaac is a Scientologist.

Compound this with Tom Cruise and his insanity of the last year (jumping on Oprah's couch, his infatuation with Katie Holmes and her pregnancy by him, his assault on Brooke Shields, his purchase of an ultrasound machine so he can take photos of his unborn child (against medical recommendations)... ad naseum.

Well, then, now there is an episode of South Park in the can which has Tom Cruise, Scientologist, hiding in a closet and refusing to come out. John Travolta, Scientologist, is trying to lure him out. We can only imagine the South Park treatment, because the episode is being withheld for now. The reasons depend on whose story you are listening to. Some say they wanted to rerun a couple of Chef's best episodes with Hayes departing; others say Tom Cruise is leveraging Mission: Impossible publicity to force the studio to pull the Scientology farce. (There's some sort of company relationship between Comedy Central and the studio that made Mission: Impossible.)

So while this may not be the doom-and-gloom news of a national attack, it's still an issue worth watching, to see what happens with the underlying issues.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
 
Tom Cruise is on the Michael Jackson life trajectory, I think. ... Of course, Hayes' own goose is gettin' cooked, the Chef would, ahem, cry "foul." ... They're just ALL spoiled brats who think -- and think we think -- way too much of themselves. I blame the paparazzi-media-opiate-of-the-masses-industrial-ipod-complex, myself.
 
"The right-wing leadership of this country pissed away one chance at internal unity and global empathy."

my buddy, carl, has posted an interesting article in the same vein.

KEvron
 
Yer buddy Carl is right on. When yer the biggest drunk in the bar, every other drunk wants to kick yer ass, and some of 'em who otherwise hate each other will get together long enough to kick yer ass. And the United States (represented on the world dancehall, uh, stage, by George W. Bush) is the biggest drunk in the bar right now.
 
"Is an attack imminent?"

We look outwards with fear, while we rot inwards from thievery and neglect.

There is a lot to repair from the foolishness of this administration.
Consider what they have done to the bipartisan Endangered Species Act. Even as we speak they want to de-list Grizzly bears from the ESA so they can be available for hunting next fall. That would be just in time for Cheney to bag one while he is still Vice-President.
This Administration has been criminal in its lack of enforcement of existing law in many many areas. I hope GWB lives a long life after he retires from the White House, because I want him to hear what people will think of what he did there as they continually run into the effects of his presidency for the next 30 years or so.

"Endangered Law
Consider this: During the administration of the first President Bush, on average, 58 species per year were protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Clinton administration averaged 65 per year. And the administration of George W. Bush? Eight species per year -- and most of those only after the courts compelled it to take action. That means that in five years, only 40 species have gained ESA protection -- fewer than in any single year of the two previous administrations. While the Act is under assault by Congressman Richard Pombo and his legislative allies, Ted Williams, editor-at-large of Audubon magazine and conservation editor of Fly Rod & Reel, reminds us in an exclusive web-only essay of the myriad ways that the Bush administration undermines a law it is ostensibly charged with upholding. The Endangered Species Act, a law that protects America's most vulnerable species, needs protection itself, and, as Williams writes, it "reflects America at its very best."

Normally I'm not for the strict conservationist views of the Sierra Club, but I'm 100% with them on this one.

Read the whole thing at:http://www.sierraclub.org/wildlife/species/williams.asp
 
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