mighty forces

Antisocial media

Haven’t been around here very much, if at all. I’ve been posting what random thoughts I had on Facebook, because my group of Facebook friends has become larger than probably even my largest weblog audience, especially since the end of words mean things.

Not sure what to do here. But then, I’m still trying to figure out Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and Posterous and Foursquare all the rest – not just for myself, but also for my clients and my current employer. It’s a thicket. But we tend to forget how young all this media stuff is – it’s like trying to figure out the impact of the printed book when you’re friends with Gutenberg. Anyone who tells you they have the answer is bluffing.

Reap the whirlwind

The cold-blooded assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller yesterday (as he stood in the lobby of his church) is an act of domestic terrorism, pure and simple.

Reading the gloating and celebration on crapweasel gathering places like FreeRepublic is literally sickening. Some are even celebrating the shooter, hoping he eludes police (too late), or offering to contribute to his defense fund.

Personally I think it’s time to expand our use of waterboarding and extra-Constitutional surveillance to the growing problem of domestic terrorism. A starting point might be waterboarding the Tiller suspect and all his close associates to see what they know about other planned terror acts in the “homeland.” Then maybe a massive investigation into every single “pro-life” group in the country – wiretaps, IRS audits, travel restrictions, FBI detainment. That’s a start, anyway.

Let’s see how they like it when these techniques are used on them and their families, instead of faceless brown people in secret prisons.

Quote of the Day

from a Digg commenter, on the Jodie Foster movie “Contact”:

“After I saw that movie, I began to think maybe it’s best we don’t talk to other worlds. We might inadvertently convert the aliens into to believing in a guy who died two thousand years ago cuz he was telling the religious leaders of his time they were all wrong. What did we do? We built another religion around his teachings. Something tells me that’s SO not what he had in mind.”

Dark and light

At first I didn’t get Facebook – I thought it was just another way to waste time online. And while it is that, it’s so much more. To me, it’s a fascinating sociological experiment where millions of people gather and show off, indirectly, what makes them tick.

I like Facebook status updates especially, because rather than being a vehicle for “I just had soup” sort of life updates that no one (including the writer) would find interesting, they become a sort of personal performance art. What can I say that’s funny, interesting, witty, charming, smart?

It became clear early on that the range of emotions acceptable in a Facebook update message are limited, especially on the dark end of the scale. Being elated over a new job is acceptable, as long as you don’t dwell on it. Your friends might even join in with congratulations, if the mood struck them. But being depressed, angry, or upset? Frowned upon, if not openly mocked.

For a while I didn’t understand why this was. If this was an avenue for expression, why not the whole spectrum? But then I realized: negative emotions aren’t allowed to be openly expressed in “polite” American society at large either – so why would they be allowed on Facebook?

Of course, it can get tiring to hear your friends bitch and moan about their problems in real life. But I think it goes beyond that – to a denial of those dark feelings themselves. After all, if we stick our fingers in our ears and shout “la la la I can’t hear you!” when others are in pain, it’s just one coping technique for helping to deny those feelings in ourselves.

No wonder we’re a society that is addicted to mood-altering substances across the spectrum. We drink, take drugs, smoke and overeat, cocooning ourselves with TV and internet, and fill up credit cards with purchases from infomercials. Where are the connections? I think one reason we find it so hard to connect is that our society tells us to grin and bear it, lest we upset the neighbors.

Expression is painful, messy, and inconvenient. But suppression is infinitely worse.

“Twilight”

I finally watched “Twilight,” because it was such a pop-culture phenomenon I felt I had to.

Because I am not – contrary to reports – a teenage girl, I’m afraid I just didn’t get it. The two leads were not attractive or interesting in any way, and no character in the movie was allowed to advance beyond the “plot device stereotype” level. Something like “True Blood,” with all its problems, has much more life and juice than this leaden exercise.

The cinematography is beautiful, when you can see it through the shroud of darkness that hangs over everything. But without a real story or characters you care about, it’s not enough.

It was inevitable that this movie, based on a blockbuster book series, would be made. But just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

Tale of two movies

Two movies, both adapted from books by Chuck Palahniuk. “Fight Club” was directed by David Fincher of “Seven.” “Choke” was directed by Clark Gregg, best known as the ex-husband on “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

The outcome is seemingly self-explanatory.

Which is too bad, because my love of Sam Rockwell (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and a sexy and funny Zaphod Beeblebrox in “Hitchhiker’s Guide”) knows few bounds. I haven’t read “Choke,” but with Palahniuk I have a feeling that the source material is exponentially more wild and interesting than was put on the screen. Well, maybe next time.

Our brand new world, Part Deux

“As long as they still both commit suicide at the end, I’m cool with it.”

-FreeRepublic crapweasel commenter, on a British high school’s gender-bending production of “Romeo and Julian.”

The simple truth

Aren’t we all just basking in this “new era” of Obama? Isn’t it great? Fantastic, right?

And yet, if Ann Coulter called President Obama a “nigger” on national TV, after a short period of blustering by the national media and a couple thousand more interviews for Ann, she would emerge even more popular than ever. It’s the truth. That’s been the trajectory of her career all along.

We Americans want to taste blood, and we don’t much care where we get it from.

Role models

I remember clearly being in the grocery store just days after Dale Earnhardt had crashed his car in the Daytona 500 and died. There on the magazine rack was a one-off publication with the headline “Dale Earnhardt: American Hero.”

What a crock. Earnhardt drove fast in a sport where people don’t want to watch drivers crash and die – they want to watch drivers crash and walk away. He failed even in that measurement. And to say that endless fast left turns are the criteria for an American hero is, frankly, insulting.

So last night my mother calls me, all upset at Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for taking a few bong hits. “Doesn’t he know he’s a role model? He should be more responsible than that,” she said, passionately.

Well, in this I have to disagree with her. Michael Phelps wasn’t a role model to anyone, except perhaps people who want to win swimming competitions. He’s an expert in a vanishingly narrow field, with a talent that is never going to advance the course of humanity in any respect. That’s not what makes a role model.

Let him smoke in peace. And let’s buy a sense of perspective as a nation, shall we?

Loathing

I feel revulsion toward all different kinds of crapweasel right-wingers. But I’ve come to realize that I have a special loathing for those, like “comic” Dennis Miller, who considered themselves liberals until the “wake-up call” of 9/11. This isn’t even about Miller in particular. It’s about all those weak-willed, weak-minded souls who decided on 9/11 that it was OK (not only OK, but productive and correct) to hate Muslims and the poor and union members and anyone else who might threaten the already fake version of their lives they had built in their heads.

Millions of bullies were created on 9/11. And the fact that they had to live through the same harrowing events and images as the rest of us doesn’t excuse them.