A Fine Look at Fascism

Disgusted is the only word I can use to describe what I saw on CNN.com yesterday. Anyone who is reading this blog, which probably is no one, I just want you to look at the picture to the right. The young man being accosted is Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old journalism student from the University of Florida. Campus police are arresting him. And yes, that's a book in his hand. Not a gun or a knife or a bomb. A goddamn book. After they arrested him, they tasered him. In any other case, that would have made me laugh but again, I'm filled with nothing but contempt and disgust having seen what happened.

It all started in Florida a few days ago when Senator John Kerry was having one of his "town hall meetings". At the end, Andrew stepped up to the mic for the Q&A session. After a quick precursor to his question, Andrew asked Kerry about reports of disenfranchised black voters and fraudulent voting machines during the 2004 election. He was then told his time was up after about 30 seconds. Then his mic was cut. Then he wanted to know why his mic was cut. Then he was arrested. Why the fuck was he arrested? Seriously there was no reason. He wasn't a threat to anyone. He had a legitamate question, albeit on the abrasive side, but he a had a solid question none the less. And he resisted arrest, which I can't quite condone, but I do believe in fighting against fascism which is what I think he was doing. They were arresting him for asking a question. That's fucked up beyond words. So after he resisted arrest, he was pinned to the ground and tasered. And he screamed in agonizing pain and it was one of the most shocking things I've ever witnessed. A young man, voicing his opinion, and being arrested and tasered for it. And everyone in the room is yelling, "Why are you doing that! Stop!" It was horrifying.

And the Fox News reports stressed Andrew as being a "prankster" like that matters. Like a young man brandishing a book instead of a firearm can be tasered and that is justified because he "likes to pulls pranks". Are you fucking kidding me, Fox News?

And Meyer's lawyers are worried that the video of this kid being taser will inevitabley hurt his case because, in a juror's eyes, "the kid had it coming". Are you fucking serious? So next time I ask a question about the integrity of a political leader, I should watch my ass from getting tasered. And the police are trying to charge the kid with disrupting the public. Now that is interesting because I guarantee you if the cops hadn't arrested him, there wouldn't have been a disturbance. The kid would have asked the question and Kerry would have answered. OH MY FUCKING CHRIST IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CHAOS!!!!

The lack of civil liberties being displayed here staggers me.

The Controversial Abortion Entry

Don't worry, I'm still going to talk about idiots on the internet. I just watched like ten videos on youtube about abortion, both pro-life and pro-choice. I'm not even going to tell you what I think of the issue because, well, to be honest I don't even have one. I'm a guy so I could never make the decision. So two of the videos that really stood out, see the issue from both sides. The first you'll get that right away but it is ineffective, which I'll explain later, and the other appears to be something else until the very end.

The first video is from Rosary Films and is frankly titled, "Medical Science Abortion is Killing of Human Beings". Grammar aside, the video really is inept in proving anything. The video poses the question, "Is this a human being?" as it shows various stages of pregnacy. After each stage, the question is posed and the answer, "Yes, this is a human being". Thanks for that well-researched, articulated, and elaborate analysis and explaination. Praise Allah. This is another sad attempt to guilt trip people into not getting abortions. Though they forget that guilt is the last thing on the mind of a rape victim. The truth of the matter is, that question is of theological nature and can never be answered using empirical evidence because there is no evidence. No one really "knows" when life starts because for life to "start", that means it has to not exist and life is constantly in existance. The cells involved in the fertilization process are alive, so does that mean every time I jack off, am I killing thousands of possible babies?

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PPamlX4HQ0

The second video is pro-choice and has a "cool, ironic, witty, way to prove to conservatives that liberals are smarter then them". But in reality, the guy who shot this was an idiot and made the pro-life protestors look like saints. Basically, this guy walks around a protest and interviews people, asking them what the punishment should be if abortions were made illegal. To this, they all said that they didn't know. They didn't know what the punishment should be. They know that abortion should be illegal and why but they didn't know what the punishment should be. Many said that there shouldn't really be a punishment because either a) they didn't know the judicial system adequately, or b) it was between them and God. So the guy at the very end asks, "Well why should it be illegal if there should be no punishment?" and "What crime is illegal that doesn't have a punishment?"

So what does this guy accomplish: two things. First, that pro-life individuals are not crazy Bible totting hypocrits who think that any woman who gets an abortion be hanged. Instead, he reveals these people to be genuinely compassionate towards these women who recieve abortions. The second thing he accomplishes is that these people are dedicated to the protest. They really only care about these babies that are being killed, as they say. It really enlightened me to the whole situation. These people just care about life. Who gives a shit if they don't know what should happen to the women if abortions were illegal. The guy wanted to make them out to be idiots, like they didn't really know what they were doing out there, but really he made them out to be saints.

Here's the link to this callous nit-wit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo

Why I hate Carlos Mencia

First of all, I don't think he's funny. So tonight, I put away my personal feelings toward him and tried to watch the show.

I couldn't do it.

A lot of people think that he's a racist and just pulls the race card (which he does) but I don't think he's a full-fledged hate monger. I mean, he tells jokes that are controverisal but I don't think he thinks that hispanics are superior to other races. But he does pull the race card, in fact, 99% of his jokes are about race. The other 1% of his jokes are divided between midgets and old people. Mind of Mencia is the most uncreative and banal TV program on the air.

This is how the show works, which looks like it's being made up as they go along. First they start out with a sketch, which is not funny, about something stupid. The episode I tortured myself through was about two penguins that he takes care of, one of which has sex with a duck. The sketch inspired no response from me. I just sat there.

And as the show continues, they eventually run out of "good" ideas and hit the streets where Carlos performs numberous stereotypes. After that, they head back to the studio for more stereotypes. And that's it. END OF SHOW.

Now if some aspect of race was enlightened or he said something insightful, you know, point out an irony or something, I would accept that and appreciate the show even if it was still just as unfunny as it is now. But it doesn't. He just presents the stereotypes. This is my impression:

BLACK PEOPLE LIKE FRIED CHICKEN! OMG YOU"RE FUCKING HILARIOUS!

WHITE PEOPLE CAN NOT DANCE!! OMG LET"S GIVE YOU YOUR OWN SHOW!

CHINESE PEOPLE CAN NOT DRIVE AUTOMOBILES!! OMG LETS MAKE A 50 FT STATUE OF YOU OUT OF PLATINUM AND FORCE PEOPLE TO PRAY TO IT!

ARAB PEOPLE ARE NOT ALL TERRORISTS BUT WE PEG THEM AS SUCH!! OMG I WANT TO SUCK YOUR DICK!

There is no redeeming quality to Carlos Mencia or his goddamn show. I've seen sketches from YouTube comedy troupes that are wildly funnier than him and they don't get his bloated paychecks. It just boggles my mind how one could find anything he does funny.

In short, I hate Carlos Mencia because he reduces comedy to just stating over-generalizations of entire peoples.