Category: Rightous Anger

Freedom and democracy often must be maintained in the face of our greatest fears.

Remember.

Why must safety always come at the price of liberty? Is our fear that great? Call me rabid but I would gladly fling open the gates of America to a 1,000 terrorists than to live in a culture where freedom is seen as conditional, where “an endless war on terrorism” really means “an endless state of martial law where dissent is hushed up, where the consitution is compromised and the fundamental rights of every American are compromised so those in power may act with impunity to ensure our ‘safety’.”

Take a history lesson, all of you, who think “endless war” is a noble endeavor. The constitution was established to be enduring, even in times of crises. Give up that right, make freedom dependant on the events of the age and you no longer live in a democracy.

Does even the MTV Video Music Awards have to do a September 11th tribute? Oy, the self importance. Not that I’ve seen the VMA’s in about 15 years but when I was a fifth grader and the very first one came on, it was just an excuse to see all your favorite musicians on one program.

Bring back Corey Hart. Now!

U.S. Airways is cutting 13% of its flights, laying off a ton of employees and implementing a rediculous set of policies which seem be advocating a when-the-going-gets-tough, gut-customer-service business strategy, in order to bootstrap themselves out of bankrupcy. Apparently now, if you miss a US Airways flight, tough luck. The ticket is now worthless. Nor can you stand by for another flight.

Imagine the following scenario: You’re on your way home to spend Thanksgiving with your family. A massive snowstorm cancels most of the flights coming out of your airport, including yours on US Airways. You may now either A) Pay a grip for a new ticket, B) Stay home or C) Go Greyhound.

Is this what we’ve come in air travel, a frail, panicked industry, hostile to its own customers? Yes, we all know September 11th was devastating but do you know anyone who doesn’t fly anymore because of this tragic day? I don’t. Yes, it will take a while for the industry to get back on its feet but is this draconian nonsense supposed to reaffirm public faith? I say buy stock immediately in Southwest Airlines, Jet Blue and any other airline that has customer service as part of its business plan. They’re about to take off.

Cory Doctorow provides a solid rebuttal over at Boing Boing of NPR’s bullet-riddled new policy, forbidding linking to their web site. I’m not as eloquent as Cory so I’ll stick with my earlier assertion. Sheer Idiocy.

I suppose there’s no need to go much further into the sheer idiocy of NPR’s new policy that you request permission to link to their site but if you have a nice juicy one to lob at them, I’d love to hear it.

Can someone explain to me why the Simpsons are scattered throughout the pages of today’s New York Times Book Review? Multiple choice:

A) Apu has a new tell-all memoir out, with shocking homosexual revelations.

B) Gore Vidal has selected Barney Gumble as our “most literate American”

C) It’s their “Summer Reading” issue and what says lightwieght, fun-in-the-sun more than those loveable scamps from Springfield?

D) The section has finally wisened up to the fact that their smug, boring, stuck-at-Portnoy’s Complaint approach to books is missing a huge swath of the reading public that hasn’t yet hit 50 and their ham-handed attempt to curry Gen-X favor by splashing the Simpsons about is as shallow as it is desperate.

But don’t let me try to sway you. Vote now…

I was fortunate enough to attend a Pro-Israel Rally at San Francisco State University yesterday. While this deserves a much longer post and I can say right now that behavior on both sides of this issue has been disgusting, I’m livid that my so called “progessive” brothers and sisters have engaged in the kind of naked anti-semitism I reserved for miltia-brand lunatics and Jerry Falwell. If your simple-minded Palestinian=Brown=Good, Israeli=White=Bad is what passes for your sense of liberalism, I recommend you get informed in the way you claim so many of us are not.

12:03 AM, Friday. Thank heaven this crappy day is over.

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