How do they do it?
Jul. 30th, 2004 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenCatching up on Newsweek, I've realized that I'm actually really glad they suckered me into reading it by offering it to me on the cheap.
They're definitely a mixed bag--no matter the magazine or the article that is the font for the ire or applause people write in, letters are a toss-up every time. I read a couple of letters about the issue with Spider-Man 2 on the cover. I couldn't believe it: people hated the fact that they had a feature, the cover feature, dedicated to Spidey over, say, Bill Clinton's new book, or, as one claimed, the findings of the 9/11 Commission. At that point, the issue in which the letter was featured was still a week or two before the final report was issued, to say nothing of the Spider-Man 2 issue which was two weeks or more before that. One letter wrote in to say that comics should be left to children and not put on magazines.
Oh, right, so, you're telling me that Spider-Man 2 made $40 million on its opening night because a lot of kids dragged their parents to midnight showings Tuesday and all day Wednesday? You do not make that kind of box office on kids alone unless you are a) a Harry Potter film, or b) an animated film 15 years ago. You just don't. Look at the big 'kiddie' pictures, you'll see the adult audience behind it. Pixar ain't for kids, that's sure as hell. Even Harry Potter relied on adults to make its millions (and you can't tell me that Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't a more grown-up friendly film either). So, if it's not just one parent and two kids or a gaggle of them that think Spider-Man is keen, it must be someone going to this movie. Read Frank Rich's column in the New York Times (if it's still free online), he makes the point that Spider-Man 2 is a more accurate judge of American political attitude than the box office for Fahrenheit 9/11, seeing as easy ten times as many people were more interested in a movie about a hero with power who doesn't abuse it (Frank Rich is my new favorite columnist ever).
Anyway, people who write in stuff that flies in the face of rationality (yes, there are a lot of people, Newsweek readers included, who want to read about Spider-Man) just bug the crap out of me. Case in point, somebody responded that Michael Moore ought to be ashamed at being applauded by foreigners seeing as they weren't applauding his artistic skills but his attack on America. This is proof that Bush's efforts to promote ignorance on par with his own are succeeding. People, not liking something our country does, has done, or plans to do doesn't make you un-American. It means you disagree with policy, which is as American as the hot dog (I like those better than apple pie). And, for that letter-writer's edification, sure the French applauded because Moore's film vindicated their opposition to the war, but this wasn't just a big group of French people milling around looking for nothing better to do than bash America. This was the Cannes Film Festival where actors, directors, producers, writers, and various others involved with the movie business were in attendance. The judges voted Fahrenheit 9/11 the best FILM there, period. That means it had to have the chops to make it, and it wasn't just because there were a bunch of snooty maitre de's (about as much of the French as I credit that writer for knowing) going "Vive le France! Mort d'America!" (look, murdered French, too, because that person was so dumb). People applauded the film for FIFTEEN FRIGGIN MINUTES. That's something, that's something IMPRESSIVE. The French didn't even applaud Armstrong that long, so get over it.
And one more on the subject of letters: thank god for the ones with some decency. The bonus of reading all these issues late is you can read the issue then get the angry letters right after. One issue had a cover story on marital infidelity and how it's on the rise among women. Personally, I found the whole thing repulsive, especially as most of the women quoted were not only not ashamed they'd failed to fulfill their vows, but they were proud of it, they claimed it improved their lives. Reading the destroyed partners' letters a few issues later put that lie to rest. It hurts, damn it, and there's no way it ever is 'okay' to cheat (not even as revenge for a spouse's infidelity, stooping to that level does not put you on moral high ground). But mostly what I enjoyed were the letters people wrote about the absolutely disgusting side article attached by a personal trainer who said he'd had something like 40 affairs with his clients. And he wasn't ashamed, either. Again, he was proud, felt like he was doing a service for these poor, neglected women, but then hastily made sure he mentioned that he never accepted sex for money or took sex in exchange for his services. No, this happy home-wrecker is no gigolo, but the letters called him out on it anyway. It's an unfortunate truth that trainers get client tail a lot, but this guy...like he was God's gift for banging married women. What a (and there is no other word for it) slut. Thank God, the letters were as revolted by him as I was. First one to have supported that asshole, I would have thrown the magazine out on the subway up to work.
The Senate race in South Dakota is heating up over, you guessed it, gay marriage. As one letter about the marital infidelity article so wisely phrased it, "it's ludicrous that we'd amend the Constitution to protect the 'sanctity' of marriage when this sanctity is increasingly forsaken by bother heterosexual men and women who claim the unique right to this institution." The same week this whole push against same-sex marriages got started (or, at least, started to get blown out of proportion), Britney Spears got married and divorced in a 36-hour-Vegas-whore-a-thon as a joke. You're telling me that that and all these people flirting at work, falling in love with people they're not married to and then sleeping with them, leaving behind families....that is what we need to protect from the horrible heresy of two people of the same gender playing house? We're saving marriage by allowing easy divorce, feeling more okay than ever not only to violate the tenets of marriage but to make it almost acceptable enough to use 'not our fault' as an excuse and get away with it...and two people who WANT TO GET MARRIED AND STAY FAITHFUL TO ONE ANOTHER FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES FORSAKING ALL OTHERS is in someway a travesty against the institution of marriage? It's at worst a cause for a revision of the "I pronounce you man and wife" speech, that's about it (but if they want to rewrite the speech my cousin's minister gave about her being owned by her husband and servant to him, I wouldn't protest).
People who want to be married and stay together, to procreate and raise well balanced children, to grow old and cherish, where the hell is the part that they must be of separate, distinct genders in the ceremony? I am not saying homosexual people are any better at not being tempted in the same way heterosexual people are, but I do say that heterosexual people in America, where the divorce rate is one in three marriages before 10 (?) years, don't get to be the first to cast the 'sanctity' stone. And some Republican dickhead in South Dakota, who's such a good memeber of his church, and, this is the kicker for me, doesn't believe in evolution, is gonna win over people that way? To be fair, some SDians said no, they were more interested in health care and a host of other things, more important to them kind of things, which is okay, to think of themselves first. But it's the sensational topics that sway elections in times like these. Hell, Daschle, the incumbent that this conservative party-liner has to beat, doesn't even like gay marriage; he just, rightly so, felt that a constitutional amendment was going a bit far to prove that Christian might makes American right. So, neither one is beating down the doors in SD telling their base that a bunch of queers are moving in next door--a bunch of married queers, nothing worse--and that now they have to read The Drowning of Steven Jones and accept it ACCEPT IT ACCEPT IT!!!!!!!!. But that's just what the Republican is promising. Not banning, Constitutionally, gay marriage is the same as passing laws in favor of it, which SDians seems to swallow despite how it totally ignores the fact that laws would still have to be passed for any such thing to be legal. It's not like murder, folks, which is wrong no matter whether there's law or not--no one gets hurt by gay marriage, and no one's getting married by not saying it violates the Constitution. It's still not accepted, it is still not recognized, even without the Constitution. The only thing that's different is that it might be okay one day. One day when you are long gone and dead, most likely, seeing as we're a nation of red states (gah, it's depressing to look at those charts).
Idiots, idiots, idiots. You have a right to speak your mind in this country, a right to be heard, a right to equal access to the institutions supported by our government regardless of race or gender, and, if you want to narrowly interpret, that exactly means that an amendment banning gay marriage is un-Constitutional. Because you are discriminating against the gender of one or the other partner who wish access to the institution--NOT the ceremony, that's yours as per your religious inclinations, but the institution is recognized by government as a union and that's something else--of marriage. Denying gay marriage is as good as telling one partner, "I'm sorry, your right to marry whom you choose is negated by the fact that you are a certain gender, that of your intended." That is un-Constitutional. Keep in mind, this is my 'narrow' reading of the Constitution, too. You start doing like Alex Hamilton and being a bit more broad about it, and a) you'll probably be shot but b) you'll open a whole new can of whoop-ass.
They're definitely a mixed bag--no matter the magazine or the article that is the font for the ire or applause people write in, letters are a toss-up every time. I read a couple of letters about the issue with Spider-Man 2 on the cover. I couldn't believe it: people hated the fact that they had a feature, the cover feature, dedicated to Spidey over, say, Bill Clinton's new book, or, as one claimed, the findings of the 9/11 Commission. At that point, the issue in which the letter was featured was still a week or two before the final report was issued, to say nothing of the Spider-Man 2 issue which was two weeks or more before that. One letter wrote in to say that comics should be left to children and not put on magazines.
Oh, right, so, you're telling me that Spider-Man 2 made $40 million on its opening night because a lot of kids dragged their parents to midnight showings Tuesday and all day Wednesday? You do not make that kind of box office on kids alone unless you are a) a Harry Potter film, or b) an animated film 15 years ago. You just don't. Look at the big 'kiddie' pictures, you'll see the adult audience behind it. Pixar ain't for kids, that's sure as hell. Even Harry Potter relied on adults to make its millions (and you can't tell me that Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't a more grown-up friendly film either). So, if it's not just one parent and two kids or a gaggle of them that think Spider-Man is keen, it must be someone going to this movie. Read Frank Rich's column in the New York Times (if it's still free online), he makes the point that Spider-Man 2 is a more accurate judge of American political attitude than the box office for Fahrenheit 9/11, seeing as easy ten times as many people were more interested in a movie about a hero with power who doesn't abuse it (Frank Rich is my new favorite columnist ever).
Anyway, people who write in stuff that flies in the face of rationality (yes, there are a lot of people, Newsweek readers included, who want to read about Spider-Man) just bug the crap out of me. Case in point, somebody responded that Michael Moore ought to be ashamed at being applauded by foreigners seeing as they weren't applauding his artistic skills but his attack on America. This is proof that Bush's efforts to promote ignorance on par with his own are succeeding. People, not liking something our country does, has done, or plans to do doesn't make you un-American. It means you disagree with policy, which is as American as the hot dog (I like those better than apple pie). And, for that letter-writer's edification, sure the French applauded because Moore's film vindicated their opposition to the war, but this wasn't just a big group of French people milling around looking for nothing better to do than bash America. This was the Cannes Film Festival where actors, directors, producers, writers, and various others involved with the movie business were in attendance. The judges voted Fahrenheit 9/11 the best FILM there, period. That means it had to have the chops to make it, and it wasn't just because there were a bunch of snooty maitre de's (about as much of the French as I credit that writer for knowing) going "Vive le France! Mort d'America!" (look, murdered French, too, because that person was so dumb). People applauded the film for FIFTEEN FRIGGIN MINUTES. That's something, that's something IMPRESSIVE. The French didn't even applaud Armstrong that long, so get over it.
And one more on the subject of letters: thank god for the ones with some decency. The bonus of reading all these issues late is you can read the issue then get the angry letters right after. One issue had a cover story on marital infidelity and how it's on the rise among women. Personally, I found the whole thing repulsive, especially as most of the women quoted were not only not ashamed they'd failed to fulfill their vows, but they were proud of it, they claimed it improved their lives. Reading the destroyed partners' letters a few issues later put that lie to rest. It hurts, damn it, and there's no way it ever is 'okay' to cheat (not even as revenge for a spouse's infidelity, stooping to that level does not put you on moral high ground). But mostly what I enjoyed were the letters people wrote about the absolutely disgusting side article attached by a personal trainer who said he'd had something like 40 affairs with his clients. And he wasn't ashamed, either. Again, he was proud, felt like he was doing a service for these poor, neglected women, but then hastily made sure he mentioned that he never accepted sex for money or took sex in exchange for his services. No, this happy home-wrecker is no gigolo, but the letters called him out on it anyway. It's an unfortunate truth that trainers get client tail a lot, but this guy...like he was God's gift for banging married women. What a (and there is no other word for it) slut. Thank God, the letters were as revolted by him as I was. First one to have supported that asshole, I would have thrown the magazine out on the subway up to work.
The Senate race in South Dakota is heating up over, you guessed it, gay marriage. As one letter about the marital infidelity article so wisely phrased it, "it's ludicrous that we'd amend the Constitution to protect the 'sanctity' of marriage when this sanctity is increasingly forsaken by bother heterosexual men and women who claim the unique right to this institution." The same week this whole push against same-sex marriages got started (or, at least, started to get blown out of proportion), Britney Spears got married and divorced in a 36-hour-Vegas-whore-a-thon as a joke. You're telling me that that and all these people flirting at work, falling in love with people they're not married to and then sleeping with them, leaving behind families....that is what we need to protect from the horrible heresy of two people of the same gender playing house? We're saving marriage by allowing easy divorce, feeling more okay than ever not only to violate the tenets of marriage but to make it almost acceptable enough to use 'not our fault' as an excuse and get away with it...and two people who WANT TO GET MARRIED AND STAY FAITHFUL TO ONE ANOTHER FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES FORSAKING ALL OTHERS is in someway a travesty against the institution of marriage? It's at worst a cause for a revision of the "I pronounce you man and wife" speech, that's about it (but if they want to rewrite the speech my cousin's minister gave about her being owned by her husband and servant to him, I wouldn't protest).
People who want to be married and stay together, to procreate and raise well balanced children, to grow old and cherish, where the hell is the part that they must be of separate, distinct genders in the ceremony? I am not saying homosexual people are any better at not being tempted in the same way heterosexual people are, but I do say that heterosexual people in America, where the divorce rate is one in three marriages before 10 (?) years, don't get to be the first to cast the 'sanctity' stone. And some Republican dickhead in South Dakota, who's such a good memeber of his church, and, this is the kicker for me, doesn't believe in evolution, is gonna win over people that way? To be fair, some SDians said no, they were more interested in health care and a host of other things, more important to them kind of things, which is okay, to think of themselves first. But it's the sensational topics that sway elections in times like these. Hell, Daschle, the incumbent that this conservative party-liner has to beat, doesn't even like gay marriage; he just, rightly so, felt that a constitutional amendment was going a bit far to prove that Christian might makes American right. So, neither one is beating down the doors in SD telling their base that a bunch of queers are moving in next door--a bunch of married queers, nothing worse--and that now they have to read The Drowning of Steven Jones and accept it ACCEPT IT ACCEPT IT!!!!!!!!. But that's just what the Republican is promising. Not banning, Constitutionally, gay marriage is the same as passing laws in favor of it, which SDians seems to swallow despite how it totally ignores the fact that laws would still have to be passed for any such thing to be legal. It's not like murder, folks, which is wrong no matter whether there's law or not--no one gets hurt by gay marriage, and no one's getting married by not saying it violates the Constitution. It's still not accepted, it is still not recognized, even without the Constitution. The only thing that's different is that it might be okay one day. One day when you are long gone and dead, most likely, seeing as we're a nation of red states (gah, it's depressing to look at those charts).
Idiots, idiots, idiots. You have a right to speak your mind in this country, a right to be heard, a right to equal access to the institutions supported by our government regardless of race or gender, and, if you want to narrowly interpret, that exactly means that an amendment banning gay marriage is un-Constitutional. Because you are discriminating against the gender of one or the other partner who wish access to the institution--NOT the ceremony, that's yours as per your religious inclinations, but the institution is recognized by government as a union and that's something else--of marriage. Denying gay marriage is as good as telling one partner, "I'm sorry, your right to marry whom you choose is negated by the fact that you are a certain gender, that of your intended." That is un-Constitutional. Keep in mind, this is my 'narrow' reading of the Constitution, too. You start doing like Alex Hamilton and being a bit more broad about it, and a) you'll probably be shot but b) you'll open a whole new can of whoop-ass.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 11:34 am (UTC)Can you believe that my AP Bio teacher wouldn't teach us evolution because he "didn't want to offend any of y'alls religions?" How one expects to teach biology without the entire foundation for the discipline is beyond me.
Maybe this is the reason I ended up leaning more towards English rather than science. Number one public school in the nation my ass.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:24 pm (UTC)What high school did you go to?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 01:38 pm (UTC)Not only was this a college prep course, but I still wonder how my teacher expected us to score well on the standardized test itself, which certainly had questions about evolution. I think he was just looking forward to retirement.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 02:46 pm (UTC)rantedy-rant-rant-rant
Date: 2004-07-30 02:52 pm (UTC)We had a creationist in our CC class when we discussed Darwin's work. That was actually really helpful, in a way, as it leant a face to the faceless multitude that just simply won't believe in evolution. It's ridiculous, to me, that anyone could argue 'well things can just pop into being' but this kid did. We were all stunned. We actually asked, "so, you're saying that, for all you know, dogs just suddenly existed one day where the weren't any before?" His response was to ask for proof that this hadn't happened. Curiously enough, he's all for extinction, for species disappearing because they are out-competed and killed off, but speciation from evolution, uh-uh, no way Jose.
What's WRONG with these people? I'm sorry, you're just being ignorant. The only reason evolution is still called, formally, 'the theory of evolution' is to kow-tow to these people. The whole of the scientific community is itching to say, "You have put your trust in us to solve the questions of life, the universe, and everything, so take our word for it, mates, evolution is a bloody fact!" One day, we will, and before you know it, Bush will be at the head of a coalition to get an amendment to the Constitution saying that evolution is a violation of the sanctity of creationism.
Creationism DOES NOT HAVE TO CONFLICT with evolution. I believe God created things, sure, but I have little faith in man of two-, three-, four thousand years ago to have had the imagination to say, "God said 'let there be life' and lo, RNA molecules were formed from the primordial ooze that consisted of simple amino acids, sugars, and compounds, which eventually gave rise to simple one-celled organisms, which in turn gave rise to DNA, then membranes got mixed in there...." It's probably my protestant upbringing (which teaches that we are to remain true to the spirit and NOT the letter of the Bible), but what's wrong with going "Some dude, who, to be fair, was quite ahead of the game for being literate, a few millenia ago wrote down what he understood was the way to make life, but now we know better. All we're saying is the *how* changed hands now that we've cracked DNA and whatnot, not the why. God can still have created everything, he just started smaller, 's all."
OH, and this right after Crick has passed away. ::cries:: He was the *cool* one!!! Watson's kind of a jerk, a religious zealot, too. Amazing DNA was ever puzzled out, what?
Re: rantedy-rant-rant-rant
Date: 2004-07-30 10:24 pm (UTC)Crick did all the work. Watson just stole stuff from Rosalind Franklin. I really liked Crick, and I'm sorry he wasn't the one who did all of the writing in the pair.
Re: rantedy-rant-rant-rant
Date: 2004-08-02 03:33 pm (UTC)Re: rantedy-rant-rant-rant
Date: 2004-08-02 08:02 pm (UTC)thought you might enjoy this
Date: 2004-07-30 06:13 pm (UTC)Christianity Protection Week, 2003
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Christianity is a sacred institution, and its protection is essential to the continued strength of our society. Christianity Protection Week provides an opportunity to focus our efforts on preserving the sanctity of Christianity and on building strong and healthy churches in America.
Christianity is about the belief in Jesus Christ, and my Administration is working to support the institution of Christianity by helping people be successful Christians and be good parents.
To encourage Christianity and promote the well-being of children, I have proposed a healthy Christianity initiative to help people develop the skills and knowledge to become Christians and sustain healthy Christian identities. Research has shown that, on average, children raised in households headed by Christian parents fare better than children who grow up in other family structures. Through education and counseling programs, faith-based, community, and government organizations promote healthy Christian couples and a better quality of life for children. By supporting responsible child-rearing and strong families, my Administration is seeking to ensure that every child can grow up in a safe and loving home.
We are also working to make sure that the Federal Government does not penalize Christianity by not allowing churches to be tax-exempt. My tax relief package eliminated the Christianity penalty. And as part of the welfare reform package I have proposed, we will do away with the rules that have made it more difficult for Christian couples to move out of poverty.
We must support the institution of Christianity and help parents build stronger families. And we must continue our work to create a compassionate, welcoming society, where all people are treated with dignity and respect.
During Christianity Protection Week, I call on all Americans to join me in expressing support for the institution of Christianity with all its benefits to our people, our culture, and our society.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim the week of October 12 through October 18, 2003, as Christian Protection Week. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this week with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-eighth.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Re: thought you might enjoy this
Date: 2004-07-30 08:57 pm (UTC)Re: thought you might enjoy this
Date: 2004-07-30 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 10:41 pm (UTC)you're so cute when you're angry ^_^
lol and yes I agree with you about the whole "smake sex marriage thing" *rolls eyes* it's like our dickhead of a prime minister claiming that it's there to 'promote families' -- so does that mean all married couples unable to/choosing not to have kids should be forced to divorce? ugh.
oooh heard something interesting on the radio though -- I think they've worked out a legal way for lesbians and single women to get sperm donations so they can have children -- which is a least a tiny step in the right direction..... (even if they're considering banning gay couples adopting...)