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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
NSWebster
Published Letters: 21 Editor's Choice: 2
The 'CSI' series (though, not so much 'CSI: Miami' is highly ranked because it reaches out to every demographic.
The blue-staters love the edgy scripts, good acting, decent writing (for network TV); red-staters love the judgemental hammer of God it brings down on victims and criminals alike.
If you watch any of the CSIs (specifically Vegas), you'll notice that most of the victims basically have it coming to them: the normal lady who wants to try out stripping ends up being killed by a hobo; the Sherlock Holmes imitator is a heroin junkie; the movie actor accidentally hangs himself while masturbating.
So, it allows the viewer to tut-tut judgementally about lifestyle choices that they, of course, would never choose. It's a perfect recipe for ratings, because nobody wants to watch a show (like 'ER' is now) where good people die for no good reason.
What keeps people coming back to CSI, is that deviants get what's coming to them. Pat Robertson couldn't preach it better.
Let's face it, O'Reilly is certainly guilty...Guilty of creating an Us vs. Them worldview that encourages over-the-top ranting and raving instead of rational dialogue, but were he an extreme left-winger, the damage would be the same.
My father is somewhere to the left of Fidel Castro, and had he been second-in-command during the Khmer Rouge, would have had Pol Pot summarily executed for being too lenient toward the rich. Just the same as Wil Wheaton can't have a reasonable dialogue with his father, I can't dare approach middle ground with mine - and I'm far more liberal than most! In my father's mind, if you only support Bush's impeachment that barely makes you a moderate. So where does one go from there?
It's the problem with politics of today from both right and left. Nobody wants to debate an issue or see anything good on the opposite site. If you're against the death penalty, then you might as well be a rapist yourself; if you join the Army, then you're a mercenary death merchant bought and paid for by Big Oil.
O'Reilly and his fellow goons know that argument and conflict bring people together at their most base level, so they keep spoonfeeding it out, and we keep lapping it up, and we're a little more scared to walk out the front door into a world where the mailman can become our bitterest enemy or most trusted ally based on what communal nutjob show we watched last night.
Fucking internet. Fucking cable TV. Information with no purpose. Just like the legendary Library of Alexandria...you know, the one that burned when the civilization fell.
Not to be too critical of an otherwise very accurate and perceptive review, but Randy didn't mention the murder "in passing," but had been telling the vice-principal about more low rent offenses all along. It was when he faced serious trouble for being involved in the rape accusation that he actively volunteered the information about the murder. From the first time he 'snitched' on someone, the audience knew it wasn't going to end well.
Second, the vice-principal didn't "lecture" Prez about helping Duquie, as much as she laid out the reality of the situation to him. Once Duquie left, another kid just like him was going to be coming up behind him, and Prez was going to have to devote those same efforts to him/her. If anything, the vice-principal was entirely sympathetic with what Prez was going through.
The points are only important because to misinterpret them is to miss what I think Simon was going for. Otherwise, very insightful review.
As a circumcised male of Protestant background, I can say with 100 percent certainty that I am completely grateful my parents decided to play Jew for a day and trim away. I'm sure I cried and wailed at the time, and maybe they felt bad, but believe me, I got over it. The end result is cleaner, neater and actually looks normal. You want trauma? I remember being eight or so and seeing the elephant trunk that was my father's manhood and wondering what in sweet Jesus' name THAT thing was supposed to be.
As far as Neal's situation goes, he should have been a husband before a son, and taken his wife's side against his parents...but he also should have been a father before a husband, and - as a man - said in no uncertain terms that circumcision was an absolute requirement for his son - if he believed that, and the opposite is equally true. The bottom line is this a manhood issue, and the mother needs to keep out of it, and let the father decide. I don't get involved with tampons, ear piercings or abortion, because it's not a man's business...and women shouldn't meddle with jockstraps, their silly son's badly hidden porn and circumcision. Some choices, decisions and conversations are a man's and a father's burden alone.
In the few moments of research I did, I can find no record of an "Able Company" in the 509th Parachute Infantry...The Army typically uses Alpha Company, and I think he went with the World War II version, probably because he never though to check...
He is an embedded reporter, though, and has his ass on the line, so he does get some leeway, but if you want to go after him, the facts he got wrong would be a good place to start. I could be wrong, too, but I don't think I am. On account of I was in the Army once, and am writing this from Baghdad.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
