p e n g u i n d e v i l

I was over at Stupid Evil Bastard where I found him dissing on the anti-fluoride crowd. While I had to punch out a (not-too-brief, of course) comment to that, it also got me to thinking… What are my pet peeves with humanity. And could I come up with ten? Then, if I could, should I list them politely? Or not-politely? Anyway, as a last minute, late-night list, here they are in (approximate) order of precedence:

1)  Religion. No, I don’t mean “organized religion” or Christianity… I mean any kind of belief in: a supernatural world, a “creator”, life after death, reincarnation, omnipotent immortal beings, other planes of existence… Anything that ignores the reality of the physical universe or that insults or undermines the great (potential) powers and abilities of humanity. I don’t like it. I can’t stand it. Though I find it funny when used as a tool to control or profit off of naïve people… Go Trinity!

2) Violence and killing. By which I mean primarily war, but also any other stupid hostile antic that people do either for profit, glory, self-edification, or because they don’t know how to control their frustrations, from bar-fights to street gangs to organized armies. Of course, this also includes killing animals because you think that they taste better than things that don’t have to have their heads cut off and be bled dry (admittedly, this all relates back to my “insulting the potential of humanity” issue in problem 1. Well, I guess that all of these points do).

3) Non-personal pride: Nationalism, ethnic pride and stuff like that. The tiring debate between people on other sides of the hill saying “our side of the hill is better than yours, so we’re going to throw rocks at you” is very annoying, especially with how destructive modern violence has gotten.

4) Homogenization of business and culture. The lazy desire to have everything and to have it all the same everywhere you go (aka, the spread of Starbucks, and the demise of small-town businesses so that people can save some money on crap that they don’t need at Wal-mart).

5) Always kowtowing to the “official” line and then criticizing people who dare to question what those in power say. This goes along with letting the government and businesses engage in practices that are damaging to our people or environment and not at least questioning their motives. Especially relevant in the era of Bush Jr and his endless misleading of people, which seems to be eerily effective.

6) Official hypocrisy, by which I especially mean the American hypocrisy of “don’t question the government”, “the president is for jesus”, and all of that other crap that violates both the letter and the spirit of what the “founding fathers” put in place.

7) “Fashion”, fixation on entertainment celebrities, commercials and anything that makes pop culture the wasteland of irrelevant, irresponsible, mind-numbing, maturity-slowing crap that it is.

8) Unneeded movie remakes.

9) Racism, sexism, homophobia and anything that entails judging people on some made-up criteria that ignores who they actually are.

10) Homeless people who sit on the street all day (generally waiting for handouts that involve making them sit through christian sermons) and throw garbage down on the ground for others to pick up, when there are garbage cans just a few feet away that they could just put their crap in, if they had the respect for themselves and the society that they live off to actually stand up and utilize them.

As an added bonus, my remaining pet-peeve relates to so many issues above that I figured I’d just keep it separate. It is “colonialism” and “domination of already occupied territories”: Ireland, Tibet, Palestine, “Kurdistan”… I don’t understand the desire to go somewhere where people live and claim it as your own (well, I understand the motives behind Israel, but…). It leads me to understand why America was as thorough as it was in annihilating the native populations, because there isn’t really a large enough remaining native population to give the America’s back to, or to make a big enough stink about it. But it is a ridiculous and crazy idea, to go to someone else’s land and claim it as your own.

A couple of days home with a sick family led to a couple of OnDemand movies, both of which were alright.

Secondly, I watched Bucktown. A blaxploitation film that I hadn’t heard of, but on viewing it I find that rather surprising. No it wasn’t particularly good, but it had a great cast and story. Featuring, of course, Pam Grier and starring Fred Williamson (and also Carl Weathers in a supporting role), this was a wacky story of racial troubles and corruption. “Duke” (Fred) comes to town from the big city to attend the funeral of his brother. There he meets a cold reception from his brother’s ex Aretha (Pam) and an icy reception from the gang of corrupt racist white police who run the town. Though he plans to just head back to the city, he finds out that he is his brothers sole beneficiary, so he inherits his club and his house. When the lawyer tells him that it will take 60 days for him to take legal possession of his brother’s property, some locals convince him to re-open the club. On doing so, he realizes the shakedown that the police demand from all business owners. Duke won’t stand for anything like that! He hooks up with Pam (of course), and calls in his pal from the city (and some muscle) to get rid of these good ol’ boy police and to clean this town up…

The lame police aren’t hard to get rid off, but once his friends see what a good thing that the police had going for themselves in “Bucktown” they decide to just take over and keep things going! Duke, of course, opposes this, and things stay hot as as the two friends begin fighting and then warring over things! Plenty of gun action and dead bodies, crazy racist dialog and machismo fill this movie with great unsavoriness. Not great but certainly a must-see if you appreciate the genre.

We also watched Dolores Claiborne. I hadn’t seen it or read it before, so it was all new to me. As far as King movies go, it wasn’t bad. One of his few non-supernatural tales, it is the story of a woman who may (or may not) have killed her husband years ago and now her boss has died and there is a witness to her being a party to that death. The local police detective, Christopher Plummer, is eager to pin this death on her, as he feels like she got away with murder all those years ago with her husbands death, so he pursues her relentlessly. Dolores is played by Kathy Bates, so there is a good energy of great hostility and edginess on her part, leading one to never be quite sure how capable of murder she might be. There is also a second angle to the story, that of her estranged daughter who has come to town due to her mothers situation. The daughter is played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who foists upon us another irritating and phony soundly “fancy” accent to bother us with (not as annoying as her accent in The Hudsucker Proxy, but annoying still). So there is lots of fighting between them, as they try to come to terms with the 20 years of bad blood between them. Though hearing Leigh talk is almost too irritating to take, otherwise the movie isn’t bad. Lots of flashbacks, neat colors of the sky and great scenery of a small town in Maine.