I did admire his stated goal, however: to upload a new video blog post every weekday, 5 days a week, for an entire year. And I’m not talking about a static, 3-minute clip of some jerk spitting junk at his miniDV cam for 3 minutes everyday. zeFrank’s shows are heavily, heavily (did I mention heavily?) edited, and often extensively researched and referenced. The show may look like crap, but a lot goes into each (takes zeFrank about 6-hours to produce each show, according to a Newsweek article).

If you somehow haven’t checked out zeFrank before, let me guide you to a week of 5 vids that I think best exemplify the genius of the show.

Start here. After you watch this video (Sept. 18, 2006, the beginning of Happy Week!) click on the next link above the video to go to the Sept. 19, 2006 video. Continue watching each video of this week until you arrive at the end of the week. 5 short videos. That’s all I’m asking you to watch. This amazing group of video posts contains virtually every element that gets me so excited about internet videos, podcasts, and new media in general.

Watched them? Good. Here are 3 reasons why Internet Video will continue to rock the world.

1. It’s too smart for TV.
   
• ZeFrank’s take on the book Stumbling On Happiness. I can’t think of a single old media broadcast outlet for this kind of intelligent rant. TV? No way. The only place you could see a clip approximating this anywhere before the internet would probably be somewhere like NPR, except that would would be a laborious, 15-minute discussion with the no doubt charmless psychiatrist author of the tome. zeFrank’s summary of the ideas in the book is enlightening, pithy, and often quite funny (”they’re not bullshitting!”). More amazing, the clip fits perfectly into what may have seemed like an arbitrary theme for this week of his show (’Happy Week’).
2. It’s Too Quick, Too Clued In, Too Hip
   
• Throughout the week, zeFrank makes mention of an impossibly random internet phenomenon, the 45-second WhipAss audio clip. Forget the movies, Internet is the real ‘lightning in a bottle.’ Fads zoom through the Interweb so quickly, so improbably that old media can’t possibly hope to stay hip (Over 9000, anyone?). zeFrank’s legion of fans siphon him, throughout the week, the best re-mixes and mash-ups the collective Net is churning out, and zeFrank works the best clips into his show. Can you imagine ‘the kids’ possibly sending their favorite remixes of a random audio clip that is being forwarded around the web this week to some talking head on the television? Ain’t gonna happen. And that’s just fine, because important TV folks don’t give a damn about that audio clip anyway… But we do. And with each micro-generation, ‘we’ is getting exponentially bigger.
3. Freedom and Turnaround
1. zeFrank spends 3-seconds saying that a non-existent rule book states his viewers (those would be the ‘Sports Racers’) must dress up their vacuum cleaners. A quick example pic is flashed, and that’s it. No other instruction. No narrator droning on about the rules and regulations. It’s not at all clear. And yet, the very next video is flashing pics of his viewers’ dressed up vacuum cleaners. And they keep coming and coming. I’d wager he received hundreds of pics. Why did people do this? There is no good answer, and that’s the beauty of it. There’s something amazing about how quickly the internet video world can react, can change, how quickly viewership can grow, how devoted fans can be. There’s no money involved. There’s no greater interest. There’s only entertainment, passion, and camaraderie. Perhaps most importantly, the camaraderie.

zeFrank ended his show recently, after successfully completing his year of constant posting. I guess it was as good a time as any for this post, though, after getting sucked into that Happy Week, I’m willing to wager you won’t be happy about the fact that you can’t watch a new episode everyday.

Anyway, the book veers off, for a considerably long passage, come to think of it, into the story of this cat named Kennedy who went undercover in the Ku Klux Klan back in the 1940’s and fed all of their secret codes, handshakes, ghost stories, etc. to the producers of the Superman radio show… *Cough*

Let me pause for a moment and note that I am actually listening to the book on my iPod and thus almost burst a blood vessel laughing every time the somewhat snarky narrator uttered term “Klavilers.”

Anyway, everybody knows that the Ku Klux Klan hates blacks, Jews, Gypsies, carnie-folk, and, oh yeah, Catholics.

That’s always been kind of exciting to me, to be hated by a hate group. For a white guy from the Northeast burbs, it feels good to put my persecuted-boots on once in a while. I mean, sure, these days all Muslim extremists hate Americans, but, as Jon Stewart aptly put it, “We’re kind of all on that hit list,” so it’s not really the same.

Listening to the Klan story in the book yesterday, I began thinking about my usual guttural reaction to the reminder that there’s a whole group of sheet-wearin’ rednecks down in the dirty South hatin’ on my religion. When the fact that the Klan, for reasons I’ve never actually bothered to look into, has a gripe against Catholics (Freakonomics informed me that the Klan was started by a couple of Irish guys, which could provide a clue, depending on which part of the island they were from) is brought up, my initial reaction has always been the same: “Oh yeah, assholes? Well, I’m a Catholic. What are you gonna do about it?” My chest-bumping fantasy usually then descends into images of an epic bar fight, at which point I snap out of it and remind myself to keep my eyes on the road.

Funny thing is, I’m not a practicing Catholic. Far from it. Though I was baptized a Catholic, and have some hazy memories of going to church when I was young, that’s about as far as my connection to the Church goes. At some point I started chompin’ down communion wafers when I did find myself being offered one. But I was never Confirmed. I don’t attend Mass. And, truth be told, I’m quite dubious of the whole Pope-as-voice-of-God notion.

Let’s think this situation through. The wholly rational reaction for someone with only a vague connection to a church or institution upon hearing that a dangerous/terrorist group wants people of that church or institution dead or banished would, of course, be, “Well. I’m not really much of a Catholic anyway…” i.e., denouncement. In life, if saving one’s skin be the most pressing day-to-day action, cutting ties with a group you don’t much care for anyway to decrease your likeliness of persecution, even if the possibility of that persecution is relatively remote, seems like a no-brainer. And yet I have the exact opposite reaction. Upon learning that a hate group like the Klan may be wanting to hurt the practitioners of the religion of my birth, though it’s a religion that I’m in reality only quasi-connected to, my reaction is to get angry, rebellious, confrontational, and, perhaps, a bit violent-minded. And I don’t think it’s just me.

This seems to be the natural human reaction to the feeling of being unjustly hated-on. Need proof? Just take a look at American Muslims these days. Since 9/11, scrutiny on Arabs, Persians, Pakistanis, and all other Muslim’s has soared. Though most haden’t done anything different/wrong since the attacks, Muslims were pressed to assimilate more into American culture, to prove their bona-fides, as it were. Funny thing is, American Muslims already were quite assimilated. Certainly more assimilated than the vast numbers of Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. And certainly more assimilated than their Islamic-brethren in various Western European countries. And they set upon this path of assimilation of their own volition. They came to America, they saw that people who learned the language, tried to fit in, and cast their public alliance with the greater community prospered fastest, that’s exactly what most Muslim immigrants did. And, for their troubles, Muslim-Americans as a whole were much more successful, and much more accepted, than their European counterparts. It’s true they sacrificed some of their Islamic-identity to gain this acceptance, but it was their own choice to do so; a calculated trade-off for a more successful life in the US. Besides, it must have been heartening that everyone else in the US had to go through a similar cultural shedding in order to fit in and move ahead. After all, it’s not like they were coming into a millennium-old culture/race like, say, France, and being asked to act like the natives. In America, there are no natives. Everybody’s some kind of immigrant and, while there is certainly an American Culture, it’s one every single new immigrant, and thus every American, had to adapt to when they came over. This we’re-all-in-it together mentality must have given some comfort to Muslim women as they discarded their hijab head-scarves.

But, following 9/11, after Muslim’s have been demonized and Muslim-American persecution is at its highest, they hijab’s are being put back on in record numbers. At precisely the instance where, rationally, one would expect Muslim-Americans to keep their head’s down and redouble their efforts to fit in, they’re differentiating themselves from American Culture at large more than ever. It can be befuddling and maddening to see this kind of thing. A Muslim family walks into an airport with the women covered head-to-toe and the men sporting beards straight out of a horror movie, and they then proceed to bitch when they’re searched more thoroughly than the other passengers at the screening area. It can be annoying, yes, but I suppose the reason for this post is to point out that it’s perfectly understandable. The feeling of persecution is a powerful, anger-inducing, rebellion-breeding feeling. Especially in a country such as the United States, a country that strides to curb all forms of persecution, its existence is capable of causing button-down, rational people to furrow their brows and push back against their tormentors with equal or excessive force. And so the formerly music-obsessed Muslim teenage girl is reading her Quran and donning the head-scarf (that one’s pretty predictable; who likes to rebel more than teenagers?), and the money-obsessed Arab Wall Street Trader is growing his beard and daring the airport screeners to treat him differently than other passengers. It’s all a big “Fuck You” to a scared and hostile society at large. And it’s human nature.

Luckily for me, the cheesiness of this moment was overcome by the uneasiness of one of the tykes; instead of being merely a lame PR stunt, the event turned into an incredibly awkward moment for one “little” girl…

Oh-My-GOOOOOOOODDDDDD! Look at that blond girl! She’s like 13 and all the other kids are like 5!!! Bahahahahahah! What a jerk! Who thought it would be a good idea to send this goober up with all the other little kids? Look at her face; she knows she’s too old to be up there! And now this pic is on every front page in the country. We’re talking years of therapy here. She’s taller than the damn Speaker!

Oh man, oh man. So, if anyone out there is having a bad day, just remember, you could be this chump…

To start with we’ll take a look at my current “Favorite Song Of All Time:” I Hung My Head by the late Johnny Cash.

This song, believe it or not (and you’re not gonna fucking believe this) was actually written by Sting. … Sting! Not the wrestler Sting, not the nWo-planted facsimile, “Sting,” but the singer/songwriter and former Police frontman. So, ironically, we’re starting off this little segment with a cover song. Usually, I’m a big fan of giving credit where credit’s due when it comes to songwriting, and I hate it, HATE IT, when people fawn over a punked-up cover of a song that was great to begin with. But there are exceptions. No one gives a shit about Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower, and Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah drives all former versions into near-obselecence.

Johnny Cash’s version of I Hung My Head joins the shallow ranks of covers that are better than the original. Cash’s version is special, because he actually took a bad song and made it sublime. Sting’s version is eminently forgettable: the almost-dance-music is way out of place, and we just can’t take Sting seriously singing this song. Johnny Cash singing it, on the other hand… Well, this sounds like the song he was born to sing. So let’s dive in…

Early one morning
With time to kill
I borrowed Jebb’s rifle
And sat on a hill
I saw a lone rider
Crossing the plain
I drew a bead on him
To practice my aim
My brother’s rifle
Went off in my hand
A shot rang out
Across the land
The horse, he kept running
The rider was dead
I hung my head
I hung my head

I set off running
To wake from the dream
My brother’s rifle
Went into the sheen
I kept on running
Into the south lands
That’s where they found me
My head in my hands

The sheriff he asked me
Why had I run
And then it came to me
Just what I had done
And all for no reason
Just one piece of lead
I hung my head
I hung my head

Here in the court house
The whole town was there
I see the judge
High up in his chair
Explain to the court room
What went through your mind
And we’ll ask the jury
What verdict they find

I felt the power
Of death over life
I orphaned his children
I widowed his wife
I begged their forgiveness
I wish I was dead
I hung my head
I hung my head

I hung my head
I hung my head

Early one morning
With time to kill
I see the gallows
Up on a hill
And out in the distance
A trick of the brain
I see a lone rider
Crossing the plain

And he’d come to fetch me
To see what they’d done
And we’ll ride together
To kingdom come
I prayed for god’s mercy
For soon I`ll be dead
I hung my head
I hung my head

I hung my head
I hung my head

Let’s start with those gorgeous opening verses. This is pure, unadulterated folk. These two verses do nothing but tell a story. Nothing but recount a series of events; you could read them in the newspaper. No feeling, no inflection in Cash’s voice. The 1/3 rhyme-scheme is simple, but that’s exactly what this song demands. These two verses set a precedent: every rhyme is a “perfect” rhyme; no “girl” rhymed with “world” in this song. Simple, deliberate, powerful. We’re going to sit down and hear a story, and Johnny Cash is going to tell it at his own pace.

The second line of this song (With time to kill) is one of the most biting puns (and most subtle foreshadowing) I’ve ever heard in a song. And I usually hate puns!

There are so many details in these opening lines that only jump out at you after repeated listens. For one, the narrator borrows his brother Jebb’s rifle; this soon-to-be killer doesn’t even own his own rifle. How pitiful and ironic.

My brother’s rifle
Went off in my hand
A shot rang out
Across the land
The horse, he kept running
The rider was dead

The imagery in the above lines is amazing. Russian film director Eisenstein was obsessed with the Japanese culture. He believed that every aspect of their culture, from the emotion-masks of their theater, to their Japanese character writing set were indicative of film editing. Look at the lines above: thy’re more cinematic than most films. My brother’s rifle/Went off in my had: that’s shot one, a Close Up of the gun going off. Shot two: A shot rang out/Across the land. Super Wide shot of the green open plains; flock of birds explodes into the air at the crack of the gun. You can just make out the tiny figure of the rider on his horse in the distance, but he’s too far away to tell what happened. Shot three: The horse, he kept running/The rider was dead. The final shot is a medium of the horse, running riderless across the plains. That’s all we need to know. Cut back to our narrator, who can’t believe what he’s done. Filmmaking via song; the lyrics paint a singular and incredibly vivid picture of events in one’s mind.

I love the way the reversal of the usual “life” and “death” to death over life catches the listener off guard, but then rails us back in by rhyming it with possibly the most devastating line ever written: I orphaned his children/I widowed his wife. I love how, like all great storytelling, at the end we’re right back where we started, but for one significant change…

Moving away from the minute details of the lyrics, the reason I’m really so taken with this song is that it is the only piece of art, in any medium, that has ever convincingly portrayed the inner nails-on-the-chalkboard-scratching that is real guilt. This is a subject I’m marginally obsessed with: I’ve made films about it. Expressing guilt through artistic means accurately is a task I had thought near-impossible before I heard this song. I Hung My Head does it effortlessly. It perfectly walks along the fine line between representing the way the narrator is feeling through his actions and oblique imagery, and tentatively letting us get “inside” his head for a moment or two. Never too much of one or the other. The carefully chosen lines tell a story (and they never for a moment stop telling a story) in such a way that alerts us precisely of what the narrator is going through.

The one and only fault I find with this song comes from the narrator rhyming “dead” with “head” three times. I wish he could of gone without repeating already used lines. But hey, even Dylan falls into that trap quite often.

Otherwise, this song is perfection. Perfect length. Perfect musical arrangement (by none other than Rick Rubin); the guitar would not have been enough. Rubin inserts just the right amount of strings to create a ghostly atmosphere (listen for the For What It’s Worth string rip-off towards the end of the song).

All in all, my favorite song ever.

People seem to have a lot of hope for the iPhone; they foresee a revolution in cell phone technology on par with the iPod– or some just want a PDA that can actually sync with their damn Mac. But what features are people expecting, exactly?

The most seemingly obvious feature, music and iTunes syncing/sales isn’t a sure thing as the iPhone would surely cannibalize iPod sales. But, personally, I think we’ll certainly see a 4-Gig flash card in the little bugger, making it level with the Nano. I think Apple will skip video for the first generation, and maybe forever: make the iPod (with its giant hard drive) the default Apple video device.

What else? It’s already been rumored that the phone(s) will have slick Instant Messaging implementation, which would have it compete with the Sidekick and its ilk. Web browser, contact book w/ pics and all the standard PDA do-dads are to be expected. I’m not sure if Jobs would sign off on a mini QWERTY keyboard; he’s not one for compromise, and the thumb-cramping plastic keys are certainly a compromise. This then is one glaring area where Apple could make vast improvements: it would be very cool to see the iPhone ship with a functional built-in lasar keyboard projector, though not very likely.

People have been speculating on a built-in iSight camera for video chat; now that would be cool.

Adding in new technological wowers like video chat, iPod capabilities, and some Apple-chic design is probably enough to sell a whole mess of iPhones. But I wouldn’t necessarily be very happy with such a device. As stated before, I’d rather see Apple tackle and creatively solve common phone problems (like typing) than add on superfluous features for technology writers to gush about.

As a Blackberry user, one big smart phone problem I think Apple could hit a homerun with is web-browsing.

Using the web with a PDA is a chore at the best of times. It’s slow. Moving around sites is clunky. You have to turn images off to achieve sane loading times, making navigation on many sites near-impossible. Even on mobile-ready sites like CNN.com, I have to scroll through 4 or 5 screens of side navigation links (which, of course, don’t fit on the side of my tiny screen and so are listed vertically) to get to the story I wish to read.

The tactic of phone designers thus far seems to be: get web designers to design for mobile standards. But we’re a decade into the game now and I’m ready to state that’s never, never going to happen.

But, luckily for phone designers, a solution has fallen into their lap. We very rarely visit websites anymore: instead, via RSS, we bring the information on websites to us.

The fact that my Blackberry doesn’t ship with an RSS feed reader is appalling. It should be constantly retrieving the FULL TEXT of blogs I subscribe to and storing the stories on the device for a few days.

I think an iPhone could do one better: Widgets. Imagine if the iPhone is capable of running the now-vast library of user-created Apple Widgets? No more scrolling around websites on a tiny screen, no more clicking through links and waiting on load times. Instead, on your iPhone’s “Dashboard Screen,” simply click on your ESPN Scoreboard widget and have all of the scores display via beautiful graphics perfectly fitted to your little screen. Instead of going to different sites to gather information, the information is brought to a widget you download once and formatted perfectly. CNN headlines, Netflix rental queues, and on and on. I think Widgets for the iPhone could be its most revolutionary feature of all.

One last note. With the ascendancy of YouTube, an iPhone that could play internet Flash video would be the ultimate waiting-in-line time killer…

First off: Joe Peicott’s Favorite 5 Albums of All Time!

Here’s how my Top 5 methodology works: These would be the only discs I’d be able to have with me on a desert island. No others. What 5 albums would I trust to keep me company forever?

These aren’t what I consider “the greatest” Albums of all time, these are the 5 albums I’d want to have with me for all time (i.e., I feel no need to prove my street cred by filling this list with Dylan, Zepplin, and Pink Floyd).

5. The Streets - Original Pirate Material

Whenever I hear people spoutin’ off about how Eminem is/was the new Dylan, I cringe. Dylan was the voice of a generation. He tapped into a youth undercurrent of rebelliousness and anger and spoke for those who weren’t articulate enough to speak for themselves (then again, is as articulate/clever as Dylan?). Who, tell me, did Eminem speak for? Wife killin’, drug ingesting, wrist slittin’ assholes? Eminem tells stories in a clever way; but that’s all. It was, in fact, another white boy rapper who quietly became the over-looked voice of a generation; a British generation, perhaps, but none the less…

I’m not fluent enough in Hip Hop to understand why the hardcore American Hip Hop fans seem to dismiss Mike Skinner. His abrasive Garage beats take some getting used to, I’ll admit, but they’re much more interesting than anything I’ve heard coming out of American Hip Hop recently. He brings to the Hip Hop table a whole new verbiage, cockney slang, that is immensely refreshing, if perhaps only for the fact that it’s new. Most importantly, his stories are overflowing with a tremendous sense of uncertainty. Uncertainty about his actions, about his place, about his friends, about his society. Mike Skinner asks QUESTIONS. Modern American Hip Hop long ago dropped any pretense of being a simple window into black urban life: it now overtly celebrates the ghetto fabulous lifestyle. I think an important thing to remember is that timing is everything in culture; a throwback album that might have been dismissed as more-of-the-same 15 years ago comes out tomorrow and is hailed as brilliant retro. The Streets came on the scene to tell a story and ponder that story’s repercussions, while the rest of the rap world celebrated grills and Cadillac’s

4. Rancid – And Out Came The Wolves

Speaking of Cadillac’s, one has only to watch a football game this weekend to view a Cadillac commercial in which Iggy Pop and the Teddybears sing, “Cause I’m a punk rocker, yes I am.” Wow, who knew Cadillac was punk? Well, I did, because these days, everyone wants to be punk. Punk was always cool, but now it’s acceptable. So acceptable that a company known for selling cars to rich old men is claiming to be punk. And it’s all Rancid’s fault.

The castration of punk rock took hold in the early 1990’s, when Green Day and their ilk broke through with their catchy pop-punk sing-a-longs. True punk fans didn’t worry, “Let the little kids have their punk-lite, we’ll keep screamin’ about anarchy and cultural destruction… And skippin’ our showers!” But oh, what a sad, sad day for real punk rockers when the reggae-tinged ska band Operation Ivy, one of the few bright spots in the 80’s American punk scene, disbanded, reformed as Rancid (well, Armstrong and Freeman formed did) , and started putting out, gulp… Alternative rock records. Was Rancid punk? Were they pop? It didn’t matter. They were real punk rockers sellin’ out and playing to the masses. Soon thereafter punk stopped being a movement and became a brand. And Out Came The Wolves isn’t a particularly important album in the history of music, but it is an important album for fans of punk rock. A blatant sellout album made all the more aggravating by the fact that, shit, it’s really, really good. It was the album no punk rocker would admit to listening to, but that they all had in their collection. The end or the turning point? Punk or pop? Who knows. But it’s good music.

3. The Beatles – The Beatles (aka The White Album)

Far, far, far from a “perfect album.” The White Album has 4 or 5 songs that I promise you would rather pull your ears off than listen to. “Wild Honey Pie?!” “Piggies?!” Or, God forbid, “Revolution 9?!!!” Horrible, horrible, horrible songs. I defy you to name anyone who’s listened to “Revolution 9” after the first time they gave it the obligatory, “What the fuck is going on with this” listen.

But this is a Jackson Pollock painting of an album. Just throw songs against the wall and see what sticks. Some are good. Some are bad. Who says an album has to have a “sound?” This one’s got my favorite Beatles song ever, “Long, Long, Long,” and another George Harrison masterpiece, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” “Helter Skelter” is out of control, “Rocky Racoon” is fun… They take more chances on this album than you can shake a stick at, and most of them work. The Beatles at their most disjointed, jokey, and experimental.

2. Weezer – Weezer (aka The Blue Album)

My favorite album of all time, and by far the one I’ve listened through most. Flashback! Early 1990’s, circa 6th-grade. Lil’ Joey likes music and all… But, in the height of the grunge era, it’s all a bit, erm, depressing. Lil’ Joey figures that’s what music is all about: you listen to crunchy guitars, look at craggly old guys making faces and women pulling live fish out of their bellies in music videos, and you feel bad. Oh, the grunge era… But then, like a ray of sunshine bursting through a Seattle rain cloud, Weezer hits the scene with “The Sweater Song.” This wasn’t depressing. This wasn’t disgusting. This had… A melody?! Music was fun again, kids, and the 6th-grade Joey eats it up. Time moves slow in Middle School, and by 7th-grade it seemed I had forgotten all about Weezer, that band I liked from forever ago. It wasn’t until my freshman year of High School that I dug up the ol’ Blue Album again. Weezer had broken up, their second CD had disappointing sales. I popped the disc in and high school Peicott was blown the fuck away. This wasn’t just joke songs about sweaters and name checking dead rock stars. This was AMAZING ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC. Compared to the bullshit Korn, Limp Bizkit and Boy Bands crowding the marketplace at the time, Weezer’s Blue Album blew me away again, this time as a new kind of fresh air: really good music amongst piles of shit.

Like seemingly one out of every three guys of my generation, I rediscovered Weezer in High School and became obsessed. Rocked out drunk to the Blue Album, brooded over Pinkerton, downloaded the B-Sides (Suzannnnne) on the newly released Napster. I am always struck when I here a Blue Album song these days by how fucking good it is. There are many bands, more bands than I care to mention, who I rocked out to in High School, only to realize when giving them a listen a few years later that they were utter shit. Weezer is good music. The Blue Album is their most complete and kick ass work.

1. Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

The Blue Album is my favorite album, but if you told me I could only hear one album for the rest of my life, this would be it. How the hell this piece of pure beauty was created on a1960’s 4-track is beyond me, but, Jesus, it’s amazing.

You know, “Gone Only Knows” has been so overused in movies and TV that it’s nearly lost all meaning. I think it’s only when you listen to it in the context of Pet Sounds, let yourself get drawn into Wilson’s soundscape and forget the world around you, that you can be hit by this, as Paul McCartney calls it, greatest of all songs, and, to be a bit more vulgar than Sir Paul, just go “Holy Shit! That is a perfect song!”

Almost every song on Pet Sounds evokes a similar reaction from me. The song lyrics, co-written by Wilson and an advertising man, are disarmingly simple, all the more affecting for their child-like innocence.

This is a true album. The most beautiful CD on any rack, in any collection, ever made. Perfection.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

Highly religious American Christians had increasingly been the butt of the joke (pretty much any joke) for years.  They were hicks.  Under-educated.  Illogical. Intolerant.    Judgmental.  Self-righteous.  Ripe for mocking.  And mocked they were.  To see an Evangelical Christian on the news was to see someone, usually with a laughably sparse vocabulary complaining about some inconsequential matter most people would never think twice about, let alone take the time to protest.  The conservative Christian character on a TV show or movie was almost always playing the part of villain, standing in the way of the free-thinking, open-minded hero.  Burned and barbed by the media again and again, the Born Agains became wise to the fact that the best they could hope for when dealing with the media was to be laughed at.  And so they remained quiet.  They went to their mega-churches every Sunday, quietly.  They asked themselves which candidate Jesus would vote for, quietly.    Interpreting the bible literally, they believed the Earth was formed but 6,000-years-ago…  Quietly.  And their numbers grew.

In November of the year 2000, the first Born Again Christian was elected President of the United States of America, again, quietly.    It was a much tamer affair than when the Catholic JFK was elected.  People were not overly alarmed.  For, over the course of 30-years leading up to the 2000 election of George W. Bush, Americans felt that most issues of Religion and State had been more or less debated and solved already.  The State would take no position on issues of faith.  Religion would stay in the church.

That’s what most Americans figured.  There was one group, of course, that did not consider the Church/State fight settled at all.  And, after decades of being increasingly marginalized, finally, one of them had come to power.  And then, all of a sudden, the quirky, formerly quiet and respectful Jesus-folk went on the rampage.  As their Savior George W. Bush led these peaceful people into War, War(!), of all un-Christian things, they focused on “correcting” every gripe they had been surpressing for the past three-decades.  Gay marriage.  Evolution.  Prayer in school.  (Notice I left out abortion, which I wouldn’t classify as a “gripe,” as it is a quite serious issue, no matter the side you fall on)  And, so long as the Christian masses gave him free reign to do pretty much whatever the hell he wanted, Bush was happy to sustain their Theocratic fantasies, and (why not), even turn back the clock a bit on a secular progression or two.

Yes, the hardcore Christian did become emboldened, and their demands did rise.  And this is a problem because, as most people already recognize, most hardcore Christians are a mess of misplaced anger and hypocrisies.

Example: Born Again Christians imagine themselves to be a fiercely Patriotic folk.  You know them, the ones with the American flag bumper stickers on their cars, the ones overtly proclaiming their love of America to no particular ends.  And yet, I have more than a hankering that if there were a vote tomorrow to abandon the Constitution of the United States (you know, that document that makes America the country they so love) in favor of a new document stating that the country shall be run by laws in accordance with the rules written in the Bible, the Born Agains would vote to ditch that dodgy ol’ Constitution en masse. Ah, yes, how patriotic.
 
I don’t think it enhances ones argument to call the opposing side idiotic (though, truth be told, if you got a couple of beers in this space man you could probably coax it out of me).  But the conservative, born-again Christians certainly ACT idotically.  Judging their various conflicting stances, I can only conclude they do not have any idea what it means to be a patriotic American, or what this country really stands for.  As with their leader, it’s tough to figure out if they are actually ignorant or willfully blind.  Whatever the case, it is important to realize that Bush emboldened an Idiot Culture in America, and that is a very serious thing.

It’s the culture that demands criticizes evolution, without ever taking the time to learn the intricacies of the theory they decry.  The culture that, again hypocritically, creates false idol after false idol (Bush. Falwell. Etc.) and unquestionably accept the opinions of their demi-God as their own.  It’s a culture that has a curious disdain for science.  I suppose their anti-scientific attitude stems from the evolution “debate,” but, much like Scientologists’ not entirely clear hatred of psychiatrists, it’s strange conservative Christians, say, take a stance against believing in Global Warming, for no obvious reason other than the fact it was those dastardly “scientists” who “came up with it.”

 In some ways, I welcome their resistance to scientific proclamations.  After all, am I not just as blindly believing the things the Scientists say as they are the things their Super Reverends say?  Do I ever delve into the actual studies and verify the facts I’m told by scientists?  No, not often.   But I have, in my day (college days, mostly) gone in depth into several experiments, examined how their facts are arrived at, how the publish/peer review system works, and, like Socrates, who remembers that a triangles’ angles equal 180-degrees, even if he doesn’t remember exactly how the mathematical proof showed it, I am confident that the system is delivering me accurate facts and proclamations.  The conservative Christians question what scientists say, but I don’t think any meaningful percentage of them ever go back to the original experiments.  I don’t think they have any interest in PROVING the scientists wrong.  They’re lazy; it’s a lot easier to just point to The Book and say, “Nuh-uh.”

The emboldening of the willfully ignorant.  That’s to be the lasting legacy of the Bush Presidency.  Ouch.

Last week, they one-upped their previous Best Headline Ever with the kickass, “U.N. Smackdown on N. Korea.” Yes, that’s right, smackdown.

Then, they out do all previous contenders for the Zanny Headline award with this gem:

Dog Saves Owner from Fire, Dies Trying to Rescue Cat

Just let that sink in…

Baaaaaa-hahahahahahahahahahaah. Are you kidding me? Seriously, are you kidding me with that?! Oh my God… That headline taps into so many levels of awesomeness that I can hardly fathom its greatness. I’ve become fully convinced that CNN has two stoned college boys coming up with headlines for their website, constantly trying to one-up each other.

That headline looks like it was ripped from an episode of the Simpsons (not a main newspaper story, but think of one of the shots where they cut to a newspaper headline, and if you pause your Tivo or DVD and read the smaller headlines around the main plot-point headline, they’re freakin’ hilarious), or at least from The Onion.

Delving into CNN’s story of this heroic pooch is even funnier:

After a disabled woman’s cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died trying unsuccessfully to rescue the cat.

Oh, that’s right! The damn cat started the fire!

Jamie Hanson said her 13-year-old dog Jesse brought her artificial leg and a phone she used to call 911.

That is just incredible.

“She got me outside and then she heard the cat upstairs and she went up there to get the cat, and she wouldn’t come back to me,” Hanson, 49, said at a news conference Monday at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center, where she was being treated for her injuries.

The dog heard that cat upstairs and went to get it?! This happens in real life?! Jesus Christ, half the time I’m too lazy to get up and grab a drink from the fridge, and this dog rescues his owner from a fire, gets outside to safety, and then the damn cat that started the fire is whining upstairs?! Hahahahhaha. Can’t you just see the dog rolling his eyes before trudging back into his certain death?

Here’s to you, Sparky…

While the Libertarian fraction of this spaceman’s psyche doesn’t like the idea of the state demanding I insure myself while driving, the pragmatist in me recognizes that I don’t, in fact, have the money for a 1960’s vintage Cadillac, and neither do 95% of the knuckleheads on the road with me. If I cause a car crash and do some serious damage to another person, they simply won’t be able to extract the funds from poor-ol’ me to put their life back together, and thus auto insurance is a necessary state imposition.

It isn’t quite a straight line to mandatory health insurance, however. The best argument for a law insisting on auto insurance is that, on the road, you could hurt someone else. When you neglect your health by not buying health insurance, you’re really only hurting yourself. And, hurting one’s self is a right of a United States citizen. Or is it?

When a poor person hurts himself, goes to the ER, is treated, but cannot pay the bill, who pays for the services rendered? Other tax payers. This situation is at the crux of Massachusetts’ new bill that basically requires all Mass. citizens to obtain health insurance. The way the Mass. legislators see it, tax payers already pay the bill when someone below the poverty line visits the ER. Countless studies over the past few decades have proven that preventing someone from getting sick (regular checkups, available prescriptions, etc. all go a long way towards preventing someone from becoming ill) is exponentially cheaper than treating someone who gets sick. Thus, it only makes fiscal sense to require everyone have health insurance, and for the state to pay the insurance charges for those who can’t afford it. Everyone will be healthier, and, added bonus, it will probably be cheaper in the long run.

On Monday the first stage of Massachusetts’ Health Care For All plan went into effect. I support the plan, and I commend Republican Governor Mitt Romney for getting behind it. From now until Spring 2007, the plan will only effect Mass. citizens under the state’s defined poverty line of $9,800 a year. Anyone who makes less than this amount now has health insurance through one of four private insurance companies working with the state. The impoverished citizens pay no deductible, and their visits to the doctor cost as little as $3. But, in reality, these people already were getting a sort of free healthcare, as, since they couldn’t pay their medical bills, the tax payers were paying for their hospital visits anyway. The plan’s biggest effects will bee seen this Spring when the plan starts to work for the State’s lower middle class, those making between $10,000 and $40,000 a year, who make too much money to simply ignore medical bills like the poorest citizens do, but perhaps not enough money to justify the considerable expense of monthly medical insurance bills. These people often go without health insurance and pay out-of-pocket for their visits to the doctor’s when they get sick. Since these visits are so expensive, they often put off going in for medical treatment until they’re in really bad shape, which obviously lowers their quality of life the much of the time. The lower-middle class will now be forced to obtain health insurance, or else pay tax penalties. The good news is the new health insurance plans offered to them in conjunction with the state will be significantly lower than they used to be.

One las thing. I was never really a supporter of the idea of universal health care until I began to think about America’s entrepreneurs, arguably our greatest resource. Most middle class Americans get their health care through their employers. I see the lack of universal health care as a real impediment to entrepreneurship, because it keeps people with good ideas and skills from leaving their day jobs to start their own business. You may have a billion dollar idea with an 80% chance of success in the marketplace, but if you’re married with 3 kids, can you justify quitting your job and starting your own company, knowing you won’t be able to afford paying out of pocket for your family’s health insurance? Very likely you’ll simply stay with your job for the benefits, and thus your million-dollar idea fades away. I don’t think a system like that makes economic sense for our country.

I am kind of charmed by these available-anywhere online word processors, though, and I’ve heard good things about Zoho ThinkFree. I’m going to move my test over to that service.

And now, uh, back to the real news…