Homer Simpson: Father of the Year

HOMER [thinking, looking at Lisa]: Maybe a hug will cork her cry-hole.

Just finished reading “Ender’s Game,” a fascinating and intense book recommended by my friend Lisa. It’s about a future society training kids to be military commanders to fight an alien menace. There’s great stuff about the military mindset, along with “ahead of their time” concepts like online identities. Also, anyone who felt “different” in any way growing up should identify with the protagonist, Ender.

I found a lot of stuff in the book eerily appropriate for the times today, especially the idea of fighting an unending war against a mysterious, unseen enemy.

“You watch. It’s all a fake. There is no war, and they’re just screwing around with us.”

“Because as long as people are afraid of the buggers, the I.F. can stay in power, and as long as the I.F. is in power, certain countries can keep their hegemony. But keep watching the vids, Ender. People will catch onto this game pretty soon, and there’ll be a civil war to end all wars. That’s the menace, Ender, not the buggers.”

Double entendre of the week

“Is your swimsuit packed?”

-Promo copy beside the ingredients list of a Blue Hawaii on a menu at Red Robin

In lighter news…

Flipping through the channels last night, I caught a piece on “60 Minutes II” about “Finding Nemo,” which opens tomorrow. Just watching the rough animation of Ellen DeGeneres’ character, the short-term-memory-challenged Dory, made me laugh out loud. And boy do I need that.

The underwater imagery looks fantastic. And the cast is great: DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Allison Janney, Brad Garrett, Vicki Lewis. I’m there.

“Vote for us – we kinda, sorta disagree!”

I love Arianna Huffington. (via Smirking Chimp)

I don’t know if this story about planned executions at Guantanamo Bay, where suspected terrorists have been held for 18 months, can be taken seriously. It’s certainly making the rounds in UK and Australian media. Even if it is true, I would object to the term “death camp.” But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a scary prospect.

Scary because of the lack of outrage among the American people for the idea that prisoners (any prisoners) could be held for months without access to counsel, tried and executed in secret. As one Metafilter commenter said, apparently with a straight face:

“If they execute people at Guantanamo (if indeed this story is true) it sounds as though it will be based on a prisoner’s avowed terrorist ideology & palpable threat to the US.”

This is George W. Bush’s America. We just live here.

“Let me ask you about the right. Is there anything else they could possibly want?”

-Jon Stewart to Bill Kristol, The Daily Show

The bubble, Part Deux

Sparky and others have lightly chastised me, and rightly so, for being so emotionally invested in the comments over at Mrs. du Toit. I agree it’s stupid. Why should I care about the rantings of a right-wing homeschooling atheist gun enthusiast, or her drooling minions? No logical reason.

But I figured out that in addition to her pushing some major buttons for me, the other reason is the weblog format itself. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I get more emotionally invested in weblog writings than I ever do with a newspaper article, book, magazine or TV show. Part of it, I think, is the idea that there’s a single real person behind these words. It becomes more like they’re talking to *me* than just to the world at large. And if someone said directly to me the things she’s been spouting, I would feel obligated to respond. If anyone personified Grandpa Simpson’s phrase about “angrying up the blood,” it’s her.

And the tragedy is, I can’t even go back to talking about American Idol! It’s over! Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll find something.

Rhetorical question of the day

Why do we keep doing things we know aren’t good for us?

Smoking guns

So this is the headline in the Telegraph:

Britain finds Iraq’s ‘smoking gun’: a top-secret missile

From this headline and the rules of basic English grammar, when asked the question, “What did the British find?” you would answer, “A missile.”

Seems simple enough.

Except when you read the story, you learn that what they found were plans for a missile (and nothing much still to put in it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). And not plans as in “plans,” but stories from Iraqis now cooperating with the British.

This of course is only Example 1,824 of misleading headlines on top of “smoking gun” stories throughout the “coalition” media, designed to leave the headline’s impression in people’s minds. As someone on Metafilter said, each one of these “smoking gun” stories tacitly acknowledges that all the ones that came before were bullshit. So is this one.

Is anyone else getting tired of being lied to?