Respect Authority

Alright, let me preface this (undoubtedly-going-to-be-long) post by saying I don’t watch political commercials. In fact, I watch very few commercials at all, thanks in large part to the magnificent invention of DVR, which is in my eyes on par with creations like electricity and microwavable breakfast sandwiches. But when I do catch political ads—the loud voice-overs, the poorly done slideshows, the requisite pull-quotes—I find myself actually less inclined to vote for whoever is being promoted, simply because I’d prefer my elected leaders know better than to annoy the shit out of me.

That said, I understand that not everyone is quite so attentive. Rather, for some, the mere mention of a political candidate might be enough to sink the moniker in their psyche so irreversibly that come election day they vote without thinking, without realizing the John Smith whose box they just checked actually denies the Holocaust, hates black people and kills puppies in his spare time.

So I imagine it is with these people in mind that outrage has erupted over the Supreme Court’s decision this week to strike down decades-old limits on corporate political expenditures, thereby permitting businesses and unions to spend freely on commercials for or against political candidates.

Some companies and union leaders have already said they will take advantage of the new freedom to participate more directly in this year’s congressional campaign, while others are perhaps waiting for the hubbub to die down before admitting their own undeniable special interests. I have no doubt that America’s largest corporations, along with its largest unions, are thrilled to be able to put their mountains of cash to use pushing candidates whose interests and policies align with their own. Even if said companies are still restricted from direct contributions to candidates (as they have been for more than a century), and even if any political messages created by corporations or unions must be disclosed as such. Undeniably, this is a big week for the idea of money as power. Read More ›

This is the best e-mail I have ever received at work. Separately, I haven’t yet clicked on the included link since I’m concerned it will either blow my computer up or put me on some sort of government watch list. The terrorism one, not the drugs one, the latter of which I’ve probably been on for some time.

Tel Aviv, Wednesday, 2^nd 2009 01:30 IDT.

Kira,

From what I see from the behaviour of the yield curve and thanks to the heroic behaviour of my troops.

I am at the present moment feeling pretty sure that The Crash on Wall Street will take place tomorrow at 5:10 PM IDT.

My Troops have been given the order to bring the Yield on the 30 Years US Treasury Bonds below 4.150% at the opening of the US financial Markets.

The New Forces of Evil are losing their hold on every single Market: Minerals, Bonds and Stocks.

From The Crash every single financial Market will be closed till they hear the Shoffar in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur: The Beginning.

For Security Precautions Read the Article:

The Crash Puzzle: 911 Crash,
Princess Diana’s Crash, and The Peace.

I am, Kira, yours sincerely,

Shalom P. Hamou

ter·ri·fy [ter-uh-fahy]
–verb (used with object), -fied, -fy⋅ing.
to fill with terror or alarm; make greatly afraid.

Synonyms:
What this video does to people with a firm grasp on reality.

Related:
ter·or·ism (auditory), noun

See also:
Things that make me ashamed to be white.

The man featured in the segment below is quite possibly a psychopath, or at the very least went a little crazy… and probably a little racist too, as a result of his very own, real life late summer blockbuster action-thriller. But the thing is, he’s been shot at least as many times as 50 Cent, he shot several aspiring gangstaz, one of them in the face (incidentally, that was the one that didn’t die), yet he is still alive. In the end, I’m afraid that’s really all that counts in this post-Mad Max Beyond The Thunderdome world. I present to you a wild case of extreme self defense that just barely hovers below vigilantism. I present to you Lance Thomas, the fastest gun in the West.

Come on, even his name sounds like a cowboy’s. Sure, he probably should have just moved his shop to a place where there’s some semblance of law and order so he wouldn’t have to kill someone every six months, but ultimately, this is the story of an aging, ordinary watchmaker who was pushed to his limits and stood his ground. It’s almost too good to be true. Get this guy a movie deal already.

It’s inspiring in a way; one, because he’s pretty fucking badass despite his cold, calculating, scary type of thing going on… and two, because he got shot in the neck on two separate occasions and lived. And I guess that’s actually just a manifestation of being badass. But honestly, who cares? It’s god damned incredible. Plus, it’s this combination of quick wits and a dash of moral absolutism — oh, and also a whole bunch of guns — that’s going to keep us out of the FEMA concentration camps.

*Editor’s note: “Live” can be taken figuratively. Episode started at 9:39 p.m. Delay can be credited to indecision between Chinese, Mexican and pizza. Decision: Mexican.

9:31 p.m. Jeff  Daniels is on the show. He has to be at least 35, but actually says “boner kill” in the first ten seconds.

9:45 p.m. Pocahontas.

9:52 p.m. VH1, having learned after the umpteenth manifestation of the “of love” series to maximize ridiculousness from the get-go, conducts the “naming ceremony” after the contestants have been drinking for at least an hour. Hilarity. Imagine a Fall Out Boy frat party.

9:54 p.m. Jeff Daniels says his name is Paulie, and reveals he’s from - shocker - the Jersey shore. Daisy likens him to a hatless Bret Michaels. I’m not sure who that’s insulting to.

9:56 p.m. There’s a male stripper - at least VH1 is equal-opportunity. He is appropriately nicknamed “Toolbox” and I’m not sure Daisy gets it.

9:58 p.m. “Cage” laments that his tattoo is always the first thing people notice about him. His tattoo is 2-inch letters spelling out “Fight or Die” on his NECK.

10:05 p.m. Daisy says “Swahili-ish.”

10:13 p.m. I remain unconvinced the Swedish triplets aren’t women. Daisy might agree, as she kicks them off almost immediately.

10:18 p.m. I see a preview for “Charm School with Ricki Lake.” I realize VH1 will literally never run out of material.

10:21 p.m. The slogan is revealed: ” ____, would you stay in this house and be my rock star?” Fairly lacking in innovation.

10:26 p.m. Jeff Daniels barely gets through elimination. I’m baffled.

10:28 p.m. Winners toast to Daisy out of flasks. Class all the way.

So we’ve all been waiting, and now it’s finally finally here. Indeed, the trial for Tyra Banks’ homeless stalker is underway!

This Georgia native apparently sent flowers and cards, along with a phone number at which he might be reached, to the set of Tyra’s show. Although his lawyer claims he was litle more than an overzealous fan with aspirations of being on the show (in audience or guest form), Tyra felt threatened by said stalker’s claims that they knew one another, had had or were in the midst of a relationship, and would likely marry and have children. You know, normal fan stuff.

What’s great about this entire story is that based on everything I’ve ever seen or heard from Tyra Banks (in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll clarify that about 75% of this knowledge is gleaned from choice clips played on The Soup), the idea of NOT being wanted, loved and obsessed over 24 hours a day is anathema to the self-obsessed supermodel. Nor would I begrudge any Tyra fan the misconception that she would love nothing more than a steady stream of flowers, notes, and proclamations of adoration. But I guess assuming she would drop everything and indulge the fantasies of a deranged fanatic is a bit too idealistic - a little like Tracy Morgan’s erstwhile Woodrow SNL character, who lured lovely celebrities into his sewer home to serenade them with nonsensical love songs.

I’m also frankly a little surprised that Tyra Banks is finding herself stalked these days. Although she’s unquestionably attactive, in another decade, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her looking pretty average, and with a forehead-to-hair ratio of 90/10.

At least he didn’t kill anyone in her name. I’m pretty sure that would make me give up on America altogether.

Well, Kim Jong-il ran out of DVDs.

North Korea sent a rocket-shaped “fuck you” to the rest of the world today, launching a projectile the country swears, like, totally only sent a satellite into space. Unfortunately for North Korea — and the United Nations, which I suspect always gets frustrated by situations capable of highlighting their insignificance — the rest of the world isn’t buying it. In fact, people are fairly confident Kim is up to all sorts of shenanigans, like perhaps plotting global domination as made possible by nuclear warhead-bearing long-range missiles.

Obama called on the UN to “punish” the country today, which makes me picture all 23 million people in North Korea taking a collective time out to “think about what they’ve done.” Sadly, the UN has traditionally displayed even less power for enforcement than most exasperated parents. In truth, I’d have much rather grown up with the UN as my parental body — giving up groundings and chores for a growing list of security resolutions that, let’s be honest, it wouldn’t really hurt me to ignore.

In any case, I find myself surprisingly unsurprised by this latest development. To be frank, some part of me assumed North Korea has been testing all manner of nuclear missiles for decades, they’ve just managed to keep it on the DL. So if the recession, environment and dual war effort weren’t enough to keep you worrying a full 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — add to the pile “very real possibility of imminent nuclear war.”

Happy Sunday.

Have you ever wondered what reality TV might look like if the entire population of our country played way too much Resident Evil? I’ve suddenly found new faith in the tired genre, and as usual, these groundbreaking heights of innovation have come from that neon alternate dimension floating in the Pacific Ocean, Japan.

This basically highlights the main difference between our two cultures — while we ‘Merkans are comfortable with our Coors Lights and watching pseudocelebrity princesses of vapidity fight over who has the coolest pair of high heels, the Japanese aspire to something greater, something more admirable… and that is, naturally, killing zombies with Tabasco sauce and plastic swords.

And so I worry for our mediocre TV culture and its 47 incarnations of The Real World. Will we ever be ready to submit our children to potential cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the name of comedy? Will we ever greet the day when we, as a country, can trick toddlers into fighting for their lives, watch it all, and laugh? For too long have we allowed our own economy to be the enemy, all the while losing sight of what terror really means: the stumbling, brain-eating undead courteously sending you a letter informing you that they will be breaking into your house.

Of course, if the living dead ever made it into VH1’s reality line-up, it’d probably resemble something more like a necrophiliac dating show hosted by Rob Zombie, possibly titled Night of the Loving Dead. And to think we call Japanese television weird.

This isn’t supposed to be a column about photography of urban decay; it just so happens that images of decomposing modern ruins compliment dark visions of the future particularly well. Still trying to figure that one out.

Late last week, TIME ran a photo essay by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre about Detroit’s golden oldies. This is the same glistening point on the map where earlier this winter a dead body was found encased in a block of ice inside an elevator shaft, where he had been for months. So yeah, Detroit… nice place to visit and all… only, um, not.

This was once Detroit’s main train station; today it has been converted into Detroit’s main source of tetanus. Seriously, no wonder Eminem is so pissed off coming from this place. Not only do you probably have cancer from the city’s proud collection of asbestos, but worse yet, there’s not even anything to do on the weekend.

In a way, Detroit functions as a sneak preview for any city in its decline. In a time when old industries and business models are showing their age and failing to keep up with technology’s exponential progression, any city that can not adapt to the demands of the present will inevitably regress exponentially.

And in a city that is increasingly resembling a ghost town, it’s hard not to believe in hauntings. Nonetheless, watching America’s ruins form before your very eyes is quite frightening all on its own.

Whatever brew of potions I fed my body last night combined with an earlier half-baked viewing of Watchmen including the new not-for-bedtime Terminator Salvation trailer made for an interesting REM cycle, to say the least. And while the grim reality of the reincarnated Terminator franchise is that Christian “I may, in all likelihood, actually kill a person someday” Bale will probably be the scariest part about it, I was nonetheless quite terrified while I dreamt, for what seemed like eons, of sugar plums and robotic apocalypse.

Given the dark visions of our own future conjured up daily by various analysts and other assorted modern day oracles, the thought of machines rising up and enslaving the entire human race is almost comforting — at least that way we wouldn’t be fighting each other anymore.

Perhaps the uncertainty of our times and the overall sense of dread looming on the horizon is what makes these photographs of World War II bunkers by Paul Virilio particularly haunting. The terrifying realities of their past staring into the terrifying potential of our future makes these silent, crumbling sentinels a sight as chilling as any army of machine gun toting T-800s. In fact, James Cameron’s description of his horrific children as “Death rendered in steel” has a certain resonance in these photos as well.
Read More ›

It’s only March and thanks to modern civilization imploding on itself, 2009 has already overfilled its fear mongering quota. Seriously, somebody tell Mrs. Fear that she’s cupcaking out of her worn-out spandex and it’s starting to really scare people.

Between the American economy’s long unchecked bulimia, the Republicans’ ongoing quest to find the country’s craziest eligible religious fanatic to unite its scattered, deluded ranks, Dubai returning to the sand from whence it came like Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders, and North Korea obviously still pretty intent on destroying the world, we all have more than enough to be shitting our pants over… which we were probably doing anyway after contracting salmonella from a bag of Reese’s Pieces.

Indeed, it’s just a little disheartening to watch humankind shit so liberally where it sleeps, so let’s comfort ourselves with fantasies of intergalactic projectile diarrhea — how exactly a sort of “Two Celestial Bodies, One Cup” might play out if it starred Earth and say, a 300 mile wide asteroid. It doesn’t take the most vivid imagination to picture the grotesque scene that would take place. And thanks to YouTube, you don’t need an imagination at all!

Suffice to say, the prospect of our planet getting t-boned by whatever that evil shit was in The Fifth Element can best be described as “scary.” Nonetheless, this type of event is estimated to have happened 5 or 6 times in the Earth’s past. In fact, and this won’t exactly help you sleep at night, it’s a relatively common cosmic occurrence and happens many times over the life of any celestial body. Just look at our own moon’s craters for proof… go ahead, I’ll wait. Did you see that shit? That’s right, I believe the correct response is, “Oh fuck!” Oh fuck is right, my friends.

Anyway, it’s really heartwarming to know that even if human kind doesn’t manage to off itself quite on its own, we still really don’t have any say in the matter. Read More ›

While everybody was busy praying every night for Rihanna to dump Chris Brown or preparing a cache of molotov cocktails for the savage riot ensuing a hypothetical Heath Ledger loss at the Oscars, something much darker was creeping around the halls of Congress… but I guess what else is new.

On Thursday, a number of Republican politicians (”conservatives” up to something sinister and morally questionable? What?) proposed the next rung on the short ladder to Big Brother’s tree fort — a heavy handed federal law that would require all Internet providers and even millions of Wi-Fi access points including hotels, restaurants, libraries (hope you don’t have to do a report on nuclear weapons any time soon), and coffee shops to keep records about all their users’ activity for two years to “aid police investigations” and “better invade the privacy of everyone in the entire fucking country.”

To be clear, this is basically Wire Tapping: The Internet Edition.

Texas Senator John Cornyn defended the bill, saying “Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.” But I’m like, it’s not Little Susie’s fault if she’s attracted to older, predatory men.

And I mean, yeah, the only real reason I’m upset is because I don’t want the government knowing about my Hannah Montana fake nudes collection, but this sounds like the kind of thing I should be outraged about anyway.

Sigh. Just another reason to live off the grid. Anyway, I gotta go find my credit card, I’m getting one of those sweet Blackberries that make you look rich and important today.