http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 13 Nov 2003 13:41:37 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/11/13/134137.php Chris GrayRoy Moore Case Verdict Justice, at least in the short term, has been served. Roy Moore has disgraced himself and American Christians with his misguided stance. America has been a haven for the Christian faith for as long as it has existed because of Freedom of Religion, not in spite of it. Christians must understand that we (yes, we) can not insist that anyone anywhere abide by or live under our moral law by force or coercion. Moore has - and continues to - thumb his nose at the Constitution Of The United States in the name of Christianity and at the risk of driving people even further toward divisiveness. I can't imagine a less Christian practice.I have been waiting for weeks to click on a news link to the perfect 'take' on the Roy Moore debacle - or at least to pick up a newspaper/magazine and see an op-ed piece that made me say, 'There's somebody who has said what I've been thinking all along!' But no such luck. And maybe I just missed it - I've been busy being all self-employed and shit.I don't have the brain for writing diatribes (misspent youth) but here's my rough guide to the whole shebang:Roy Moore is an immoral man. His actions spit in the face of Christian ideals and Christian principles. I have read the Bible pretty thoroughly and - even though no Church on earth is clamoring to claim me as a member - I am very comfortable describing myself as a Christian. It takes a fool to take something as pure and simple as the teachings of Christ and pervert them to defend something as foul as what Moore and his cronies are doing. No text on earth so clearly and succinctly lays down the framework for religious and social tolerance as the New Testament. Christ clearly warned us to 'render unto Caesar,' but he never made any mention about us forcing anything of ours down Caesar's throat.Moore and his ilk would have us believe that the framers of the Constitution - being Christians themselves - never meant separation of church and state / freedom of religion to be so grossly interpreted. Bullshit. The framers of the Constitution knew exactly what they were doing and that this country would have to practice religious tolerance for ALL, not just a handful of Baptists, Quakers, and Catholics, if it were to be a lasting alternative to what they had suffered under in Europe. The idea of separation of church and state was pretty novel and came at a high price. I don't think the 'Founding Fathers' need a mouth-breathing country judge to make plain what they intended - it's worked in plain view of the world for a couple of centuries now.Roy Moore is a disgrace to his profession. He took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of The United States and then promptly decided to wipe his ass with a huge chunk of it. I heard him dare use the word 'treason' the other day to describe how he would feel if forced to remove the 10 Commandments monument. Let's see, Roy, you swore an oath to your Country, all its citizens, and to your President and then broke it for the sole purpose of furthering your goals and subverting the power of all the above... yep, that's treason.Lastly - and here's the kicker - is that Moore's antics have brought out into the light of day a whole new generation of American 'Christians' who a) have no real understanding or discernment for the central text to their faith (It really would only take a well-taught 5th grade Sunday School class to know that Moore's actions are wrong) and b) that they couldn't care less for separation of church and state or the Constitution: the very things that make it possible for them to worship freely in the first place. Why is this last part so scary? Because it's that SAME brand of religious zealotry and blindness that - when viewed from places like Iraq and Jerusalem - is usually followed eventually by the sounds of car bombs and mortar fire.That - and did Alabama really need (yet) another black eye? Politics10099@blogcritics.org Thu, 13 Nov 2003 13:41:37 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/24/071011.php Chris GrayI haven't blogged about the World Series (or baseball period, actually) since my Braves lost to The Cubs in the first round of the playoffs. I do want to make one observation about tonight's Marlins win over the Yankees, however. It was almost the win that wasn't. Marlin's pitcher Braden Looper almost blew one of the most commanding World Series leads ever tonight and he telegraphed his own demise. How? By shaking off signs by the man who may very well be the best catcher of all time: Ivan 'Pudge' Rodriguez. I doubt it'll be ESPN fodder tomorrow, but if you go back and look at the tape you'll see Looper shaking off signs before Giambi hit his home run and then - most noticeably - on the next at-bat when Jeter hit the double that started an almost certain Yankee comeback!Bottom Line: If the Hall Of Famer behind the plate wants a fastball down and in - give him a fastball down and in. The other thing I noticed tonight during the final inning was that on the last out of the game - the one that sends the Marlins back to New York needing only one win in two games to clinch their second World Championship - Hideki Matsui took the first pitch he saw down the 1st base line for the out. Fox immediately cut to a shot of George Steinbrenner who turns to someone (his brother, maybe?) and jams one finger in the air in disbelief that 'Godzilla' swung at the first pitch he saw. Funny!Ahhhhh... The minutiae of baseball makes me a happy man. Sports9456@blogcritics.org Fri, 24 Oct 2003 07:10:11 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/22/133402.php Chris GrayOr - 'How Paul McCartney Once Kept Me From Getting Laid'Anyone who knows me knows that at some point in the distant past I lost all patience keeping up with sentimental 'stuff.' All those records, tapes and CD's that I'd been holding onto like The Grail? Gave 'em away or put them in storage. Kazaa and a case of slugs would hold me. The shelves full of books I used to line up like soldiers? Parceled most of 'em out as Christmas gifts and got myself a shiny new library card instead. High School annuals? Fuck that. I was ugly and so were most of you. And who among us really needs to re-read gems like 'Chris - God loves you and I am trying' (direct quote - from a majorette, no less) scrawled in the margins of a $30 dollar book I bought 15 years ago? Nobody, that's who.Why the change? I dunno. Honestly. I just remember thinking - you know what? I have been listening to the same music, reading the same 15 books, eating the same food, and traveling in the same circles for quite a while and I'm done with that now. And that was that. Amen. So I became the 'hey, let's go do something different right now' guy. Hydroponic Indian food? Sounds delicious. Jeet Kun Do classes? Absolutely. Ditto for Buddhist meditation and slam poetry. Ambient techno music by a 12 year old Israeli girl? I'm IN! Colonic? Well ... maybe.Still, every once in a while you just gotta look back - pillars of salt be damned. And I did just that (in the silliest of ways) Friday last by shelling out $16.95 for the (used) 2-CD set: The Beatle's Greatest Hits : 1962 - 1966. I bought them for no other reason than that I woke up humming 'Eleanor Rigby' and couldn't quite get over it. Waking up humming anything, much less 'Eleanor Rigby,' is probably a sign that my meds need adjusting, and it kept on nagging at me until I found myself at the music store on my lunch hour. No, the irony is not lost on me that my 'nostalgia' music is from my parent's generation. I'm weird, always have been. So I spent the weekend getting reacquainted with the music that kept me company so often when I was younger and it was nice ...Which leads me to one of my favorite stories:When I was 20 I met and fell into deranged lust with a woman who was 17 years my senior. It was a beautiful relationship and I studied intently at the feet of her many personalities. The age difference was never really an issue - except to cops, waiters, co-workers, family, friends, members of the clergy and the staff of the Mariott Hotel chain. I wouldn't trade the experience for the world, though: No one has since used the words 'stalking' or 'insanity' in my presence that I wasn't able to nod my head with an air of wisdom. Or maybe it's fear.At any rate - we were hanging out once ingesting enough Tanqueray gin to sedate a hump-back whale and listening to John, Paul, George and Ringo. I had the warm glow that drunk 20 year-olds get when sex is imminent. I was singing softly to myself (as I am prone to do) when I looked up and saw her staring at me...'What are you singing?,' she asked.'The song ...''What song?,' she asked.'That song. The Beatles song that is playing on the CD player right now.''How does it go? Sing it', she said.'Why?''Just do it ...', she says.And so I did - and this is what I sang - to the tune of 'Michelle': MI-CHELLE MY BELLE, SUNDAY 'MORN PLAY YOUR PIANO SONGS, PLAY PIANO SONGS At which point she burst into tears and I ended up consoling a drunk who was suddenly as humorless as (I soon discovered) a woman can be when she becomes aware that she is in a relationship with someone who is younger than many pairs of her shoes.So I didn't get laid that night - or for several nights thereafter - and I fully intend to address this with Paul McCartney if the opportunity ever presents itself.For the record, what Paul sings in 'Michelle' (I all but had to tattoo it on my chest to get back into her good graces) is: MICHELLE, MA BELLE, SONT DES MOTS QUI VONT TRES BIEN ENSEMBLE, TRES BIEN ENSEMBLE Which loosely translates to - I think - 'date people within a decade of your own age or don't date at all.' Music9405@blogcritics.org Wed, 22 Oct 2003 13:34:02 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/22/011259.php Chris GrayFriendster was/is supposed to be some great example of 'social software' - the idea being that honest, clear-thinking folk will sign up - craft an honest profile - and then invite their friends to join. Their friends will - in turn - invite their friends until you have a trustworthy hodgepodge of folks who share a common link. Bullshit. Here's my Friendster saga: I joined and sent the spamish invite to all my friends. Seven of them joined up. And there we sat for months, just the eight of us, wallowing in our anti-social morass. How sad is that? I'll tell you: on Friendster you can only search out people that you are connected to through your 'friends'. I signed up seven friends and they signed up ZILCH, so any search on Friendster for interesting souls yielded NOTHING except the profiles of the other seven losers that I already knew. Humiliating. So Uncle Chris, being the determined go-getter that he is, decided to take matters into his own hands.First off I went in search of Friendster users on AOL by stalking them via the Members Directory. Then - in what may be the single most pathetic feat in Friendster's history - I crafted a form letter begging folks to add my sorry Gang of Eight to their networks. I sent the letter to over 300 folks and got ONE poor girl in Florida to add me as a friend. The results? My 'network' jumped to over 60,000 folks. We had arrived. Here was our ticket to the show. One of the Gang Of Eight even got laid.Next up? I searched that 60,000 folks for anyone and everyone from Birmingham, Alabama and sent THEM a form letter full of 'Birmingham Friendsters Unite!' propaganda. Another round of fish in the boat. Our network crossed the 200,000 mark. Now we were on FIRE. Straggling Usual Suspects began clamoring to join.It's October and we are over the 450,000 mark and growing. I get new invites every week. I can search Friendster from my community and find freaks as far away as Bali. And so? I have - through beautiful manipulation - crafted an online community that is just as alien, fake, terrifying and closed to me as the one that I live in offline. Neat trick.Footnote: If you want to add me - send the invite to the email address here. Politics9388@blogcritics.org Wed, 22 Oct 2003 01:12:59 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/21/235851.php Chris GrayI'm not entirely sure at what point in my life I started moving politically toward the Right - I suppose it was growing up in a fairly economically depressed area and being very disturbed by how social programs tended to fail miserably at doing anything other than keeping poor people poor. I remember reading one article that said that a mother of four on welfare would need a job making roughly $55K a year to be able to afford the housing, insurance, food and daycare provided (inadequately) by social services. There was simply no path for someone in those circumstances to try and improve their educational level or to shoot for better job skills because there are/were so few blue-collar jobs that would provide the income necessary for survival. The most logical and compassionate path for a woman in that position to take was to maintain the status quo: stay on the government dole.Some people take information like that and process it as the idea that we need MORE social programs with better benefits and higher taxes to pay for them. I disagreed then and I disagree now. What gives people the best shot at escaping welfare and poverty is education and employment at an annual income well above the poverty line. U.S. Steel, General Motors, UPS, 3M, 'Ma Bell' - American businesses have fed generations of people and their employees' paychecks have funded millions of children through college. It seems to me that America works best when business prospers. Give people adequate education and either encouragement and support toward entrepreneurialism or a chance at gainful employment and they will thrive. And where education is concerned, the Republican sentiment that education fares best when the Feds leave state and local governments the hell alone seems on the mark to me as well.I don't have the brain to write sweeping explanations of Right/Left politics in America. I just know that - for me - the Republican idea of strong business and less government makes sense. I tend personally to be in the very middle of the Conservative equation: I support a strong military, lower taxes and more initiatives for business, social programs that are finite and help people quickly re-enter the work force, but I also tend to be moderately liberal (choke, gasp) on social issues. As long as people don't try to force their lifestyles down the throat of others - especially the throats of children - they should be able to live as they please. Abortion saddens me - as it does most everyone I've ever met - but I don't think we need a return to coat-hangers and underground abortionists. And one of the few things that keeps me from fully drinking the kool-aid and becoming a GOP cultist is it's flippant and stupid attitude toward environmental issues. Anyone who can't walk outside in February and see that something is fucking WRONG with our planet is just an idiot.But anyway - I say all of the above to say this: Rush Limbaugh makes me fucking crazy. On one hand, I sometimes love to see the old boy just cowboy up and bash the shit out of the Left - specially the Garrofolo / Franken 'celebrity liberal' crowd. But on the other hand, I don't think you could find a more arrogant and obtuse media figure in American history. Limbaugh picked-up a hammer at some point in his career and he's been swinging it with reckless abandon ever since. I have no sympathy for the man. The statements he made about NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb - true or not - were just plain idiotic. And the man makes me so angry with his 'fuck the environment' attitude that I had to quit listening to him on AM radio long ago. Conservatives are their own worst enemy sometimes and allowing Limbaugh to command the bully pulpit for the American Right was just plain dumb. There are millions of women, blacks, latinos and - shudder! - gays who quietly lean to the Right only to be repulsed by The Man With The Golden Microphone. The disclosure of Limbaugh's 'drug problem' and the very public beating he's about to take is just classic 'pride proceeding the fall' stuff.I am very heartened by the Centrist revolution (or maybe 'evolution' is the better word) taking shape within the ranks of the GOP right now. The GOP could - if it will move toward a more inclusive attitude on social issues - become less the stereotyped party of wealthy / heartless white men and more a party of people from all walks of life.Even if Limbaugh survives the shit storm - and he will - it should open the door for more sane Conservative voices in the media: folks like Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough and JC Watts and the possibility that a truly 'compassionate conservative' view of America gets equal air-time.Rush Limbaugh's fall from grace could be the start of something positive for a new generation of Conservatives. Politics9386@blogcritics.org Tue, 21 Oct 2003 23:58:51 EDT