A couple of funny videos from around the Net for your viewing pleasure...
Dane Cooked
I haven't yet commented on the whole Danish cartoon rioting story, because it's egregiously stupid. Just another one of those international incidents that reminds us 90% of the human race has the maturity level of an autistic middle school student.
Let me make this real clear for all of you. If you have a strong opinion, one way or another, about a Danish caricature of the prophet Mohammad...you're a mouth-breather. That means, whether you're attacking embassies in Afghanistan and being shot at by police or using this as yet another excuse to attack the religion of Islam or making a map of nations that refuse to publish the cartoon, you're a fool who is too quick to join an angry, thoughtless mob mentality.
Shut the fuck up and let adults worry about it, please. It's just a goddamn cartoon.
Here's a pair of clips, from "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," that provide a bit of context to this entire debacle. Thanks to One Good Move for the clip.
Shit Getting Blowed Up Real Good
Alert reader Ofer sent me this video of a bunch of Oklahoma goobers shooting guns indiscriminately at a field full of abandoned vehicles. Wooo-eeee!
I'm not sure if he sent this to me as a goof ("hey, check out these Oklahoma goobers shooting guns indiscriminately!") or because he thought I'd find it cool ("hey, check out this gunfire and these explosions! Awesome!"). I'm going to go ahead and assume the former.
You can tell from the video that this event lasts from the morning until well into the night. What could possibly be the appeal of firing guns randomly into a field in tandem with several hundred other violence-enthusiasts? It's certainly not about accuracy, aim and skill with a weapon, because you can't even tell who is hitting what. I mean, at least if they tied up some gay guys and Hillary Clinton out there with targets around their necks, I'd understand the popularity of such an event in Oklahoma.
Is it just a desire to make shit blow up real good? If so, mission accomplished. Oh, and please note the guy teaching his young daughter to fire an automatic weapon. Sir, you're truly an inspiration.
Basically, It's Softcore
A mysterious "promo reel" for Basic Instinct 2 has magically appeared online. Check it out here (warning: the link leads directly to a Quicktime file), compliments of Aint It Cool News. It is essentially two minutes of softcore pornography, starring Sharon Stone, cut to crummy "intense" movie music.
This is probably the work of desperate producers, who need to convince Americans that this movie will be dangerous and sexy, despite the fact that Sharon Stone his been acting in films since roughly the silent era. We're talking about an actress for whom Total Recall was a comeback.
And Shar does look pretty good for her age. I'm not trying to bash her or anything. It's obviously pretty brave for any woman over 40 to star in an erotic thriller requiring full frontal nudity. This movie's just kind of a questionable decision all around. She's not exactly a genius or anything, but Sharon can act well enough that she probably doesn't need to go the Shannon Tweed route. (Although even Shannon Tweed uses body doubles, at this point.)
The former. :)
ReplyDeleteI've long been against the idea of sheltering children by hiding knowledge of reality from them. I don't think there's anything wrong with a four year old saying "fuck", for example, or lying about where babies coming from, or that some drugs are not as bad as others. While my initial reaction to the video was probably the same as most other blue staters (oh my god, he's teaching his five year old daughter that machine guns are fun and harmless), but I had to supress that reaction, because I don't think it's quite that simple.
If I had a daughter, I wouldn't be putting her in front of a machine gun at five. I might, however, take her to a range at 12 (or 14, or whatever the CA minimum is) to learn how to properly use a firearm. I think the key criteria of judgement here is whether or not you are successfully communicating that guns are dangerous, that knowledge is good, and that dangerous activities are acceptable if you take the proper precautions. The one thing I can't really reconcile, though, is the idea of demonstrating by example that blowing shit up is a form of entertainment.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I've never actually fired a weapon myself, but I've been meaning to get my ass to the range for years to learn how to use one (for self defense at least). And as a kid raised on movies and video games, I probably would enjoy blowing shit up as much as the next guy. :) But that's probably best satisfied by a few college hijinks, as opposed to a regular family outing.
Teaching a child about using a safely using a firearm as a tool only when neccessary...well, that's difficult to argue against. Though I wouldn't ever want a gun in my home, particularly if there were young'uns about, I know that they are not, themselves, inherently evil.
ReplyDeleteBut teaching a young child that it's fun to indiscriminately fire automatic weapons with the intent to cause destruction is not just wrong and reckless, but a touch insane.