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Watchmen Trailer

Considering two of the best movies I saw this year were superhero movies based on comics (Iron Man and Hellboy II), I guess I'll look forward to Watchmen next year. Nice trailer...

Homemade Roller Coaster

A guy loves roller coasters but gets tired of waiting in line, so he makes his own--complete with a 360-degree loop.

I'm actually relatively impressed! The homemade Blue Flash Coaster...

RIP: Jesse Helms

When a politician dies, it's become fashionable to laud him, no matter how offensive or wrong-headed his or her policies and actions. When Nixon passed, those who read his many obituaries and tributes would've have had a hard time telling he was the man responsible for shaming the Office of the President with clandestine, domestic spying against Democrats, that he cost the country billions of dollars in lost productivity and Federal spending to address his crimes, or that he ushered in a period of distrust of those in Washington, D.C.

So, while others are praising Jesse Helms for the way he stuck to his ideals and values, I think we ought to instead be pointing out how those "values" and "ideals" were hate and intolerance. The irony is that this man, who worked most of his life to deny equal rights to so many, died on Independence Day while so many Americans were celebrating that all men are created equal.

Some may feel this is unfair--that Helms was a product of his times, so we should ignore the bigoted and hateful things he said. I might actually agree with this if so many people don't still believe the same things. The fact these words were uttered by a man who influenced the thinking of so many others is why they deserve to be seen for what they are today, the day after his death.

• "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?" (1950) (Source)
  
• "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (1981) (Source)
  
• "The University of North Carolina (UNC)... the University of Negroes and Communists..." (1995) (Source)
  
• "All Latins are volatile people." (1986) (Source)
  
• "The government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct." (1995) (Source)
  
• "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here [Fort Bragg]. He'd better have a bodyguard. " (1994) (Source)
  
• "Because she's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that."--Senator Jesse Helms after failing to block the confirmation of Roberta Achtenberg as assistant secretary for the House and Urban Development Department, May 1993 (Source)
  
• "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind restraint that has thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic and commerce, and interfere with other men's rights."--Helms on "the Negro problem," 1963 (Source)
  
• "We've got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts."-- Helms on why he opposed approval of AIDS research. (Source)
  
• "I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners, or niggers."-- Helms, 1985, quoted from the Democratic Alliance (Source)
  
• "Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade school classes that teach our children that Cannabilism, wife-swapping, and the murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior."--Helms from a fundraising mailer sent out by his campaign (Source)
  
• "The subject matter is so obscene, so revolting, it's difficult for me to stand here and talk about it. I may throw up." 1987, commenting on an HIV prevention comic book (Source)
  
• "There is not one single case of Aids reported in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." 1988 (Source)
  
• "Think about it. Homosexuals and lesbians, disgusting people, marching in our streets, demanding all sorts of things, including the right to marry each other. How do you like them apples?" 1990, during his re-election campaign (Source)
  
• On Larry King Live, Helms took a call from Tilk, Alabama. "I just think that you should get a Nobel Peace Prize for everything you've done to help keep down the niggers," the caller said. "Thank you, I think," Helms replied. (Source)
  
• "You were the best qualified for that job, but they had to give it to a minority." Helms' 1990 campaign ad (Source)

I will not rejoice in the passing of another human being, but I will not allow a person's death to turn him from ignorant bigot to saint. Helms' words speak for themselves. It's a shame a man in a position of power for as long as Helms was couldn't use his pulpit to enlighten rather than to reinforce false stereotypes and to deny other humans the right to equal protection under the law.

Cutest. Video. Evar!

Animal Friendship Between Different Species.

This video is presented to make your Independence Day a little more warm and fuzzy.

How Pathetic Has the American Male Become?

I understand it's just a movie, but I went into Wanted expecting a fun Summer movie ride and I walked out depressed at the state of the American male.

Warning, there are spoilers below, so if you want to see two hours of slow-mo bullets piercing heads and the laws of physics being violated, then you may not wish to read further.

Wanted is Matrix without Matrix's heart and soul. There's lots of slow-mo action, some of it quite good but most of it simply ridiculous. In one scene, a car slides sideways, hits a small lateral crack in the pavement, vaults 20 feet over a phalanx of police cars, hits the side of a bus with its wheels, pushes the bus over on its side, and drives off the bus to safety. In another scene, a single bullet pierces the heads of six different people consecutively. Some movies this season are about super heroes, but this one is about super bullets!

I'm not going to complain about the ridiculously unbelievable action sequences in Wanted; instead, I'll complain about what it says about my gender. The movie's about a feckless office worker named Wesley Gibson who lives a miserable life ruled by shrew-like women--his obese boss is a bully and his girlfriend is an unfaithful witch. The flick is one of the most misogynistic movies I can recall in quite some time. (Of course, his one and only buddy is no better--he's screwing Wesley's girlfriend and actually borrows money from our protagonist to buy the condoms to do so.)

Wesley comes to learn that he has special powers and is the son of the world's greatest assassin, which is pretty lucky for the guy since the movie makes clear that working in an office is the equivalent of modern slavery. Stripped of his dignity in the most crude and cartoonish of ways, Wanted makes sure the audience cannot miss how unmanly it is for Wesley to work in a cubicle. As a result, his conversion to an assassin's way of life has less to do with family honor and almost everything to do with the fact the modern male is a wimpy, downtrodden, sterile, powerless being who can really only realize his potential by causing mayhem and death.

I have nothing against fantasies where people escape a burdensome existence for something more exciting (see Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.), but I do object when the exciting way of life is nothing more than an adrenalin rush from killing others. The writers, sensing they needed to give Wesley some semblance of a conscience, paste a fraudulent and brief scene where he hesitates on his first assassination assignment. Luckily, he quickly learns it's all right to kill other people, and his momentary lapse gives him script license to smile lustily as he mows people down from that point forward.

The men in the audience at my showing seemed to eat it up, and that is what I found depressing. How sad have we males become that we empathize with the powerlessness of an office employee and cheer as the character graduates from puberty to manhood by sending bullets into people.

Maybe I just take things too seriously, but I found Wanted to be more disturbing than entertaining. Perhaps the misogynistic, misanthropic ideas are just in the heads of the film makers, but heaven help us if they've tapped into the psyche of the modern man.

Drift Away

I have a keyboard gathering dust despite my perfectly functioning two hands. I am ashamed. [Via Attuworld]