At home evening last week I watched the live action "Beauty and the Beast". I haven't even seen the animated one in longer than I can remember. I didn't want to watch it and I didn't think I would like it because Jeremy eviscerated it on CinemaSins and held it to be a redundant waste of movie. All of the plot holes and continuity errors he pointed out were valid reasons not to like it. But what can I say? Beneath my callous, cynical, sarcastic, angry, bitter, contemptuous exterior beats the heart of a hopeless romantic. And even though there were people around, I couldn't help hugging my knees and thinking Awwwwwwwwwww! And not just because I've had a crush on Emma Watson since 2001. (I would have liked to hear her try an actual French accent like Ewan McGregor, but alas, it was not to be.) Having said that, however, I do have a couple complaints to add to Jeremy's. 1. They rhymed "wife" and "life" in three songs. Come on, writers. Google "rhyme dictionary" next time you're stuck like that. 2. The appliances watching the budding romance sing, "Who'd have ever thought that this could be?" and while that makes sense from the perspective of movie characters who don't know they're in a movie, it's an insult to the audience's intelligence because everyone with an age and IQ over five knew that this would be even if they were completely unfamiliar with the story. But just for fun I drafted an alternate and perhaps more realistic outcome. "Realistic" being a relative term, given that one of the parties is still a human magically turned into a talking monstrosity by an enchantress. "Beast," says Hermione, er, Belle, "I've decided that I just want to be friends. I promise it's not at all because you look like the offspring of Chewbacca and Satan." "Hmph," says the Beast. "That's what they all say. I thought you were different. The same old lies... Do you think I can't handle the truth? Is that what you think?" "Oh, stop it." Belle sighs. "Look, okay, maybe that is a teensy little bit of the reason, but mostly it's because I didn't like how you treated my father and I." "My father and me." "What?" "My father and me. You wouldn't say 'how you treated I', so saying 'how you treated my father and I' is a hypercorrection improperly substituting the nominative for the accusative." "Je m'en fous. I didn't like it, is all I'm saying. And that was only, what, three days ago? How can I trust that you've really changed already? I'd have to be some kind of idiot, right?" The Beast's face seems to go a little red beneath his fur. "Er... I guess when you put it that way..." "We can be friends forever, though, you and me and -" "You and I." "- and the clock and the candle and all these other cute little guys." Belle stoops to pat Cogsworth on the head. The Beast sighs. "Yes, well, I'm afraid all these other cute little guys are going to become mute inanimate objects soon because friendship isn't sufficient to break the curse. Thanks for nothing." "Curse? What curse?" Belle is jarred by this revelation. The Beast facepalms. "Duh, what did you think was behind all of this, science? Only true love can break the curse, and it's almost too late..." "Oh, why didn't you say so? I can help you with that!" The Beast's ears perk up hopefully. "Yeah?" "Yeah!" Belle says, clapping her hands together. "Let's head on over to https://www.russianbrides.com and I'll have you set up in no time." Yes, I got a little carried away. Emma Watson has that effect on me. I think she should be in Star Wars. I can see her now as Rey's Padawan Hirmai Ohn'ee, an exceptionally studious and straitlaced Jedi with the charming quirk of saying strange words whenever she uses the Force. I've been a bit surprised to discover the depth of racism that still exists in the United States. I know, I know, white privilege. I figured out a long time ago that there was some, of course. One time my family and I ended up driving through a seedy, impoverished, dangerous part of Albany for some reason, and every single person we saw outside their houses was black. Even at that young age I knew this couldn't be a coincidence and that racism somehow, some way, had to have something to do with it. But then Obama came along. I was very conservative and didn't like him at all. My high school friends teased me for being racist. I assumed they were just being stupid teenagers. When I moved to college and discovered that so-called adults were doing the same thing, I was speechless. So yes, some liberals have an obsession with pretending it's still 1953 and whining about racism where there is none in an attempt to shut up anyone who disagrees with them, and they have only themselves to blame for other people not noticing or taking seriously the racism that does exist. Of course, the rest of us have had an unequivocal wake-up call from the Nazis and Klansmen and their ilk now that our president has made it acceptable for them to come out of the shadows. There is little for me to say that hasn't already been said a million times but I wish to go on record as being opposed to them and everything they stand for so no one assumes otherwise. I just really wish Americans would get over their leg-humping obsession with skin color already. Drumpf, of course, continues to drag the presidency through the mud with his refusal to unequivocally condemn so many of the people who voted for him. I can't imagine how black people, Jews, etc. must feel about these people, but I wonder if it's similar to how I feel about the anti-vaxxer movement. I wonder if it's similar to the primal rage I felt welling up in my gut just the other day when I found a Jenny McCarthy book at work. Because, while I won't pretend to share their heritage of systematic prejudice, I do have some idea what it's like to have a sizable group of people that don't want people like me to exist. On a similar note, have you heard that Iceland has almost completely eliminated Down Syndrome? Well, kind of. All it's actually done is abort almost every baby that has it. Now at first glance this may appear quite similar to the Nazi program of removing "undesirable" people from the population, but don't be fooled. These are just clumps of cells we're talking about here. And somehow one can tell when a clump of cells has Down Syndrome, and eliminate it accordingly. Erasure - AlwaysEveryone who has played the classic "Robot Unicorn Attack" is very familiar with this song. I chose it because it fits the fairy tale romance theme with which this post began, kind of.
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I would like to apologize to the world for how terrible my previous post was (insert your own quip about all my posts being terrible here). It never should have seen the light of day, but that's just an inevitable cost of my commitment to publish something every week whether I feel like it or not. When I do feel like it, and put more time into it, I'm able to flesh out and expand on half-formed ideas, revise the wording a few times, and just generally make the posts less terrible. This time around none of that happened because I didn't have much to say and put it off until Saturday night when I forced myself to say it anyway. I am a bit more enthusiastic about what I have to say this time around, though some people probably won't be. I've gotten quite tired of the widespread and inexcusable ignorance surrounding American tax law as it relates to religions. Usually I just roll my eyes to the back of my head and scroll past it, but this meme, which has been liked and shared by thousands of people, was the last straw. My first thought is hey, that building looks familiar. My second thought, glossing over the minor detail that this meme doesn't cite any actual math or give me any reason to believe that its creator didn't pull this percentage out of his butt, is that if we want 3% taxes a better solution might be to actually lower taxes by getting rid of a bunch of the useless crap our government spends them on. Granted, if it somehow cut its expenses to zero it would still have the small matter of a ~$20,000,000,000,000 debt to contend with, but I'm pretty sure we've all just agreed to act like that's not a thing, right? Anyway, more to the point, I decided to play their own game and make a meme of my own, which won't reach nearly as wide of an audience because a. I'm invisible and b. people hate the truth, but it stands a better chance than just plain words. Though flattered by the depiction of an LDS temple, I opted for a more generic Christian church so as not to imply any ecclesiastical endorsement of my internet activities. (Notice that these people invariably say "churches", not "religions". Somehow I almost get the ridiculous idea that they're only interested in taxing Christianity.) I really, really, really wanted to preface it with "Dear morons:", but I restrained myself because that's not what Jesus would say. I considered instead something like "Public service announcement for the woefully ignorant:", but this meme's length already exceeds the average millennial's attention span by a solid two seconds as it is. I named a specific politically involved nonprofit (albeit one that makes curiously high profits) because just saying "but not any other nonprofits" or "but not secular nonprofits" wouldn't have had nearly the same hypocrisy-skewering impact. I could just as easily have named the NRA, but let's be honest, we all know that the kind of people who support the NRA aren't the kind of people who want to tax churches. Then I wrapped it up by copying society's own bigot-shaming game. I learned from the worst. While I'm on the subject I'd like to keep going. The phrase "separation of church and state", which appears nowhere in the US Constitution, is paraphrased from a letter from Thomas Jefferson assuring a committee of Baptists that the government had no right to infringe on their beliefs or practices. It is now usually used to mean that churches should be subjected to a double standard compared to all other organizations and that religious (or at least Christian) leaders shouldn't be allowed to express political opinions or do anything outside of a church setting ever. For example, we saw this kind of stupidity a few months ago when President Henry B. Eyring was announced as the commencement speaker for Utah Valley University, and several people griped about this imaginary violation of the nonexistent constitutional principle of "separation of church and state". Because never mind his secular credentials and qualifications; all that matters is he's a high-ranking LDS leader so he shouldn't be allowed to speak at a secular university because reasons. Yet somehow the university survived his terrible speech about "helping and lifting others". Churches do more to help and lift people than their detractors could ever dream of even if they were into that sort of thing. The Catholic Church is sometimes known as "the largest charitable organization in the world" because it's the largest charitable organization in the world. The LDS Church, which this meme has singled out for criticism, is a small fraction of the Catholic Church's size and thus far more modest in scope, but still provides a lot of humanitarian aid immediately after every major disaster and also on a regular basis throughout the world, including countries where it has no or little presence. Its welfare system is unlike any other. Of course, under the law, none of this is actually necessary to qualify as a non-profit organization, but it is nice. Churches do tend to prioritize spiritual matters over temporal ones (e.g. the expensive temple in the picture) since that's kind of the reason they exist, but that's their business. Each has the basic human right to teach and practice its doctrine regardless of whether you agree with it or not. If it's true then it's pretty dang important and if it's not then we'll all be dead someday regardless, so get over it. Perhaps I should mention that the LDS Church, which this meme has singled out for criticism, is involved in some for-profit ventures which for legal purposes are handled by a separate entity that... wait for it... pays taxes. These also play an important role in the economy and provide jobs. Maybe someday they'll expand to the point where the Church pays enough in taxes for you to only pay 3%. If that happened, would you appreciate it or would you whine about how churches shouldn't be involved in for-profit ventures? There's no pleasing you, is there? Now, obviously some so-called preachers are all about profit and have abused the law to secure unmerited tax-exempt status, and that's wrong and it should be stopped. John Oliver did a great segment about them. But they're the exception, not the rule, and some secular organizations do the same thing, albeit with far less charisma. Some of them, as crazy as it sounds, actually receive money from actual taxpayers. Imagine the outrage if churches did that. (They do in several European countries, but mostly just from their own members. Mostly.) In conclusion, I'm not attacking all secularists or all liberals, but the contention espoused in this meme is ignorant and asinine. No wonder it's so popular. halc & Tuberz McGee - SquidzillaI can't quite tell if this song is in reference to some Japanese monster movie or something that would explain some of the oddities in the lyrics, but I think it's beautiful regardless. And it speaks to me. USU graduation last year came on the heels of the first week at my terrible call center job, so now that this milestone has come around again with unreal speed I can look back and feel very good about how far I've come even though I haven't come very far. The weather has been cloudy today, keeping the heat down to a reasonable level, with just a bit of rain for a while that didn't disrupt the proceedings. Debbie has her Master of Social Work now and I'm very proud of all the hard work she put into it while still prioritizing and making time for people. Fortunately she's sticking around Logan and I pray we'll get to hang out all summer like we did all last summer. I wanted to write all about how great she is and what an incalculably profound influence she's had on my life and the kind of person I want to become, but that was a daunting task far beyond my skills so I gave up before I started. Many of the coworkers I have grown to know and love are, alas, going home for the summer. The conclusion I've drawn from this is don't care about people because then they'll always hurt you somehow even if they don't try. I'm kidding, but not really. Now it is very difficult to find an unbiased source, and I'm not a doctor or anything, but as far as I can tell, Trumpcare is little more than Obamacare with a couple of the bad parts and all of the good parts removed. In any case, it's a testament to the Republican Party's pettiness and hypocrisy. They are not proponents of limited government - just limited Democrat government. And they don't give a crap about the gullible voters who for seven years have supported them and counted on them to get government out of healthcare. In fairness, they are trying to restore much of the insurance companies' unfettered freedom to screw their customers whenever they get a chance, so there's that. Corruption in government = bad; corruption in corporations = fine. Oh, but I'm not shedding any tears over their attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, even thought this could potentially force women to go to any of the thousands of other women's health centers that are available in the US. So there's that. In last week's post I quoted Bill Nye as saying that "Many, many, many, many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans", and this wasn't the main point so I just tacked it on to the end with little context. The context, in case you were wondering and/or objecting, was that many fertilized eggs never implant and continue to develop, and for political or arbitrary reasons he and some other people don't consider them part of the human species despite being fully comprised of human DNA. He made this argument in an effort to persuade pro-lifers that they're hypocritical and wrong. In contrast, as I made sure to point out, this time around I made no effort to persuade anyone of anything as far as abortion is concerned. In asserting that these fertilized eggs are human, I was not saying they can think or feel or are entitled to the full rights and protections of a grown adult, and I don't think they are, but I was rejecting Nye's political and moral assertions based on a scientific facade. (Also, someone pointed out that different cultures have had varying ideas on when life begins, but there's a scientific definition of that and they're not entitled to their own facts.) We are all well aware of the ongoing violence in Syria, largely because of the refugee crisis and the tens of thousands of men, women and children who remain in dire need of whatever help we can offer them. You've probably heard a lot less about the ongoing violence in Central African Republic and South Sudan. The battles and atrocities in these two nations are unrelated to each other, but they're both awful and tragic and the biggest crises going on in Africa right now. Every once in a while I Google these nations in the hope of some happy news, but despite occasional positive developments there just is no end in sight. So that's what I'm fasting and praying for this weekend and I just felt like bringing it up since they don't get nearly as much attention as Syria. Palette-Swap Ninja - Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star PlansSo, this is one of the most creative and interesting things ever - the entire "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album parodied as the story of "A New Hope" with great faithfulness to the original instrumentation, lyrics, and cadence. I am thoroughly impressed and don't understand why it doesn't have ten million views already. Let me tell you about this crazy dream that I had! I dreamed that Mon Mothma was delivering something to a settlement on some planet somewhere, but she couldn't make it so I and a small ragtag crew took the job. The something was a deflector shield to protect the settlement from orbital bombardment, and we got it there and set it up just in time. Seconds after the dome went up, with us observing from some distance outside, laser blasts came raining down from somewhere up in space - the Empire, I guess - hitting it and sliding onto the ground where they sent up showers of enormous white flowers. A few more volleys came, each spraying more flowers, until the dome was nearly covered with them. The blasts stopped. My companion - I guess he was supposed to be a cross between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo, so basically the coolest person in the universe - then decided it was our turn. He looked up at the sky, took aim with his blaster, calculated where the unseen enemy ship would be by the time his blasts got up that high, and returned fire. Of course I expected the ship to just explode like they usually did. Instead, it burst into flame and came spiraling down, where it was revealed to be merely a rocket sled with two cartoon guys (one thin and one fat) perched on it right out in the open. They were yelling, but seemed more concerned about stabilizing the ship than about themselves also being on fire. One of them grabbed the burning engine and wanted to throw it overboard but the other one yelled back that that wouldn't do any good. The rocket sled was just spinning out of control all over the place like a balloon with the air let out. It skimmed the surface of a pond that was suddenly in front of us, then hit an enormous tree and flew up the length of its trunk, bending it nearly to the ground and snapping off most of its branches, then flipped back and crashed into the pond which was now covered with a large oil spill. Obi-Han was visibly quite pleased with himself, but I couldn't help thinking of the destruction our victory had cost. The guys somehow doused the flames that had engulfed them, Obi-Han grabbed the fat one by the throat for interrogation, and I woke up feeling disturbed by how vivid it had been. I still remember when I was three years old or younger watching episodes of "Bill Nye the Science Guy" as they aired for the first time. While I've forgotten virtually all of the actual details, I remember a distinct fondness for the show. And I appreciated its host's debate performance against Ken Ham a few years ago (even though holding the debate in the first place gave the latter undue credibility and funds). So it's a rather poignant feeling to have to lose respect for him now. Bill Nye, as many people seeking to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change are quick to point out, is not a scientist. He is an entertainer with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Now of course, he is still very well-versed and trustworthy on many scientific matters. It's when he oversteps the bounds of science in disturbing ways, while still maintaining a veneer of scientific authority as far as most of the public is concerned, that we run into a problem. (Richard Dawkins, who actually is or was a scientist, has done this all the time too, but he's such a jerk these days that I don't think anyone actually likes him anymore and I'm not concerned about him.) So Bill Nye's doing this new show called "Bill Nye Saves the World" and in one of the episodes he talked about chromosomes and gender and sexuality and what have you. I don't pretend to know anything about that so I'll assume for the sake of argument that all his science was correct according to our current understanding. But then he invited a sitcom actress (also not a scientist) to perform a song, and I haven't watched this segment but I skimmed over the frankly revolting lyrics, and it was all about (in way too much detail) how anything goes where sex is concerned because of evolution. Now look, I really couldn't care less what consenting adults do behind closed doors far away from me. But to claim that science morally justifies sexual anarchy, and to actually be serious about it and not a Poe making fun of liberals, is nothing short of lunacy. Other animals rape, cannibalize, kill their offspring, and defecate wherever they feel like; any consistent and honest person following Bill Nye's faulty reasoning would have to conclude that these are all okay for humans too. Maybe he'd draw a line, as many do, between stuff that directly and noticeably harms other people and stuff that doesn't - but where's the "scientific" basis for doing so? There isn't one. No matter how much some atheists try to pretend otherwise, any and all arguments for morality are philosophical or theological in nature because they are not empirically verifiable. If I say morality dictates that I'm the only person who matters and everyone else should be my slaves, my claim is as scientifically valid as Bill Nye's or anyone else's. This disgusting song illustrates a big reason why otherwise intelligent Christians are afraid to accept evolution. They're wrong, but Bill Nye just validated them with his own wrongness. And despite the very loud and hateful minority that attempts to shame everyone else into silence, I think most people recognize garbage like this for what it is and are tired of it being shoved down our throats. "I know this doesn't have to be said," Amanda Prestigiacomo wrote, "but stuff like this is why Trump won." Because Trump stands for wholesome values like marriage and fidelity and hahahahaha I'm sorry, what was I talking about? Oh, and if that weren't enough, in the final episode he hosted a panel discussion about overpopulation and science change and asked them, "So should we have policies that penalize people for having extra kids in the developed world?" Wow. Just wow. If you aren't appalled by that suggestion, something's wrong with you. But maybe the Chinese government has an opening. Here's a news flash for Mr. Science Guy and his ilk: births in most of the developed world are already well below the replacement rate. This is not an obscure, complicated, or debatable fact. Policies that reward people for having children, while far from sufficient to solve the problem, make more sense and have been implemented in countries like Australia, Germany, Russia, and Japan. But Bill Nye doesn't seem to know much about reproduction anyway, as he once claimed that "Many, many, many, many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans." Really? What are they then, zebras? RIP my childhood. This is General Conference weekend! Which means that, as per usual, I will write about it next week instead of this week because that's much easier! I finished Season Three of "Star Wars: Rebels" last night and I stand by my earlier assessment of the show as being really great. I don't even know what to say about it because the coolest parts involve severe spoilers. I guess I will just say for now that recycling Grand Admiral Thrawn from the jettisoned Expanded Universe was a brilliant move, as was his translation to the screen. His creepy soft-spoken monotone (cough I have one of those too cough) and creepy pipe organ motif, to say nothing of him having blue skin and red eyes and being a token alien in the virulently racist Empire, make him a unique bad guy in good ways. But one episode made me more scared of Hera than of him or any other villain. Avoiding spoilers, let's just say that if I were in the Rebellion and she ever so much as looked at me I'd be like "I'M SORRY I SWEAR I DIDN'T TOUCH YOUR DROID PLEASE DON'T BLOW ME UP I'M SORRY I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING I'M SORRY" Most pro-choicers have to bend over backwards and upside down to avoid thinking about what abortion actually is, while abortion providers themselves bend over backwards and upside down to avoid letting them think about it. Hence all the rhetoric and euphemisms about "choice", "bodily autonomy", "reproductive health", making sure to always use the word "fetus" instead of "baby", etc. And hence a strong resistance to looking at or allowing people to look at unborn fetuses and find out that they actually look like people. (Many post-abortive women have been horrified to find this out after the fact. Funny how "pro-choice" is so seldom pro-informed-choice.) Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in Planned Parenthood's recent cartoons explaining abortion procedures, which depict fetuses as - you can't make this stuff up - white dots. Dots. As stupid as the verbal rhetoric is, it's difficult to see this visual equivalent as anything less than a deliberate flat-out lie. I would call it an insult to people's intelligence, but thousands will probably accept it without question. They've already accepted the "clump of cells" BS, after all. Fitting then, that in the latest "deceptively edited" undercover Planned Parenthood video (the scare quotes indicate sarcasm) a former regional director comments, "It’s not a matter of how I feel about it coming out intact, but I gotta worry about my staff and people’s feelings about it coming out looking like a baby. We have the people who do our paperwork for the fetal death certificates, they email us calling them ‘babies’. Baby this, baby that, baby so-and-so, and I’m like, that’s creepy!" You don't say? If you support the right to tear fetal limbs off and suck fetal brains out, own up to it. Don't be a spineless wimp-noodle who hides behind word games and delusions about white dots. And I'm not being as completely snarky as I sound because I do believe that abortion is acceptable, albeit highly regrettable, in a small handful of circumstances that make up a single digit percentage of actual abortions in the U.S. But I don't pretend that those circumstances magically turn living breathing fetuses into white dots. (This is why most pro-lifers do not believe in exceptions. I sympathize.) I should probably be upset if it turns out, as it looks like it's going to, that Russia messed up the U.S. election. But I would mostly just be impressed that they pulled it off, and hope that with this as practice, they'll be able to start meddling at an earlier stage next time around so we don't end up with a pair of turds to choose between in the first place. What good would being mad do, anyway? It's just one of those things that happens. Russians will be Russians, am I right? That's not racist because they're white. (To quote regional LDS Seminaries and Institutes Director Sergei Seminov on his visit here a couple years ago, "Russians are the scariest white people.") And of course, it's not like the U.S. has ever interfered with another democratic country's elections to support its own interests - oh wait. Never mind. So I say, Mr. Putin, if you were behind this, congratulations on your little prank and thank you for ending Hillary's career. I know I shouldn't like you, but I kind of you, because you're kind of a jerk and so am I. What did they actually allegedly do? I should be paying more attention to the news. I just know that as of several months ago they were accused of leaking the Democrat Party's shady emails and duping Drumpf supporters with fake news stories. I have zero moral objections to the former because politicians who send shady emails deserve to be exposed, and though I have theoretical objections to the latter I can't really blame anyone for succumbing to the temptation to exploit humanity's mind-numbing gullibility for fun or profit. It's like Andrew Wakefield - sure, he's a slimeball of epic proportions, but is it really his fault that thousands of people still believe in him despite him being thoroughly disgraced and discredited and the lies in his one and only "study" being common knowledge? Kal Ho Naa HoI have yet to see this movie but I know the general story from the music videos. This one is a story in and of itself, and somehow is more beautiful and moving than it would be if I understood any of the words. |
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- Amelia Whitlock "I don't know how well you know Christopher Randall Nicholson, but... he's trolling. You should read his blog. It's delightful." - David Young About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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