Archive for October, 2006

Oh, how I love the web.

I have loved this bit of claymation since I first saw it on Sesame Street when I was seven or eight years old, and I don’t think I’ve seen it in about thirty years. Half an hour ago, I was watching Ze Frank trying to tell a story about a bunch of rocks (not quite his best work) and it reminded me of this little wonder, so I ran a quick search on sesame street 12 animation rocks and there it was. Joy!

This piece has it all: religion, sacrifice, symbolism, mob mentality, violence. This is a big part of how I ended up studying the Surrealists. (I studied under that guy. The bibliography of the book is six months of me.)

No, I’m really not kidding. Forget the story, forget the lesson, and just think about the sensations and motivations. What are those stones experiencing? It’s the point at which the conscious and subconscious meet. There is thought, but that thought is only hesitation toward a release that takes them to a level of nothing but feeling: rage for some, fear for others, and then, natural understanding and escape to safety. Qwerty like.

Dear Quiznos,
Is prime rib truly “king of all the meats”?

Does it collect taxes from the other meats and spend the money on living in lavish meat luxury? Does it claim the throne based on the divine right of meat?

Does it form alliances with the leaders of other food groups? What does it serve when visiting dignitaries are there?

Is it protector of the meat faith?

Who is queen of all the meats? Who’s heir to the meat throne?

Is it still king of all the meats after it’s slapped onto a sub roll and buried under fako cheez and mayo?

There’s something I want to tell you about — a truth that’s been hidden from you for years. You may have trouble believing it, but that’s only because people in power have worked to keep you ignorant about it. It’s a conspiracy as insidious as the cover-up concerning the truth about Delaware.

If you’ve ever visited a nursing home, you’ve probably seen the beds there. To the untrained eye, they look just like hospital beds, but there’s a big difference. Nursing home beds are designed for a very specific, secret purpose in addition to the purpose they share with hospital beds.

Late at night, when all the patients are asleep (some of them have to be drugged to make certain they’ll sleep through this process), the beds in the nursing home first extend and fasten straps over the sleeping senior in order to hold them in place, then automatically move. One by one, they roll out of their rooms and into an elevator which carries them down to a secret sub-basement.

Upon reaching the basement, the beds roll toward a large round vat which is being gently warmed and stirred by automated equipment. Once the vat is completely surrounded by beds, the beds tilt forward, bringing the seniors up to a position of leaning over the vat.

Supervisors are present to make certain that no one awakens. They also check to ensure that all the mouths open in the tilting process, and open them manually if need be.

For the next two to three hours, the sleeping seniors drool into the vat. When the process is complete, the beds tilt back down, then travel back upstairs to the rooms and unstrap the sleeping seniors.

Back in the basement, the drool of the seniors is gently heated and mixed so that it thickens and congeals. After about eight hours of this process, the drool has been turned into a thick, whitish, semi-soft substance, which is then packaged and sent out to stores for purchase.

Consumers believe that the goo they’re spreading onto their bagels is a dairy product, but that’s only because they’re the unwitting victims of a terrible, disgusting lie. If people were permitted to know where their schmear really came from, there would be chaos in the streets. I know that it’s dangerous to reveal this truth, but I could never forgive myself if I failed to warn the world’s populace of what they’re putting in their mouths.

An invasion takes place, followed by a difficult occupation. The occupiers see themselves as being there to help. They don’t believe the people are prepared to live in peace and govern themselves, but want to help them get there.

There are wide cultural gaps between the two populations, not the least of which is based on their respective religions. Some of the occupiers see themselves as being on a mission to teach the people about their god.

The people, however, don’t see the occupying forces as anything more than an invading enemy. Some try to get by, but many join an insurgency that will do anything to make things difficult for the occupiers. They sabotage and destroy the invaders’ equipment, and even go to the extreme of killing innocent civilians in suicide bombings.

The occupiers, continuing to believe that their mission is worth completing, start rounding up people without charging them, detaining them for extended periods and sometimes torturing them in an effort to break the back of the insurgency. They convince some of the people to join a police force which they train, telling them that they’ll eventually be hailed as heroes by their people, but the police are viewed as collaborators by the people. The police have to hide their faces from the people they’re supposed to be protecting, and it doesn’t take long before it becomes their job to round people up, dragging them from their homes and taking them to detention.

The government remains in place, but it is no more than a puppet of the occupiers, forced to sign on to whatever policies the occupational authorities create.

The situation raises serious questions:

• Is it anyone’s place to decide to “help” others against their will?
• Do one’s beliefs in justice and democracy trump the beliefs of others?
• Can a religion of peace be forced upon people?
• Is it better to live in peace with invaders, or to fight against all odds to force them out?
• If the invaders want to help you with technology and resources, does that make a difference?
• Is it treason to try to make life under occupation as good as possible for everyone?
• Are there objective definitions for the terms “terrorist” and “freedom fighter”?
• What are the limits of fighting back — if killing your own people and creating chaos is all you can do to counter the occupying forces, are you as bad as they are?
• And at what point must the invaders decide that their attempt to help has made matters worse? Do they create a totalitarian state in an effort to pacify the populace enough that they’ll then be able to help them?

It’s a TV show — a science fiction TV show about humans fighting robots, no less. And it’s dealing with complex issues of both the price and the meaning of freedom far better than any governments I know of. In fact, only one piece of rhetoric in tonight’s season premiere reminded me of the sort of thing Bushyboy says. The Chief and Tigh are arguing over the concept of suicide bombings. At the thought of bombing a public marketplace, the Chief says, “This is crazy. You know, we need to figure out whose side we’re on.” Tigh’s response is

Which side are we on? We’re on the side of the demons, Chief. We’re evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.

Sound familiar to the way the insurgency in a certain country is being described by the president of the country that invaded them? But Tigh is being sarcastic.

“As the New Caprica Police stand up,
our centurians will stand down.”

Everyone has their personal favorite among the various dumb-ass things our Torturer in Chief has said. Some are fond of his “Ask Tony Blair!” scream at the debate. More recently, we had the wonderful “I’m the decider, and I decide what is best.” Others just love those big words he can’t get out quite right:

• eckullectic
• perpetuators
• nukyular
• clandessintly
• terrist, which I actually hear as closer to “turst”

My absolute favorite, and I don’t really know why, is one in which he elides a sentence which, for most people, would be four or five words (one of them can be a contraction of two) into a single three-syllable word. It’s the one he uses when he wants you to know that he has positive feelings for a person. No, I’m not talking about peering into “Vladamer’s” heart and trusting that he believes in democracy. I mean the lovely, folksy, down-homey higoomayh. Just mouse over the word if you require a translation.

So I was so excited that Bush came out in support of Denny “Grand Slam Breakfast” Hastert, because I knew he was going to look straight in the cameras and give us a solemn, straight from the heart higoomayh. But he didn’t! Instead, we got stuck with “I know Denny Hastert, I meet with him a lot. He is a father, teacher, coach, who cares about the children of this country.” No fair!

Sure it was a dumb thing to say, but it wasn’t dumb enough.