The Twilight Phenomenon: Do We Need to Sedate Our High School Girls?

Not being a tweenaged girl, I admit to not having an extensive knowledge base about the highly acclaimed Twilight series. It apparently involves a very realistic tale about some handsome, neck-biting vampire who gets the hots for some dullard of a band geek. And most importantly in our purity-ring obsessed society, they don't bone! Needless to say, the book and movie has inspired endless YouTube tributes with horrendous indie-rock in the background, as well as some fan art that was most likely doodled during 3rd period Civics class.

But, it's not all fun and games as some of the kids "too cool" for Twilight have discovered. Ms. K sent me this io9 post involving flare guns:

Not with a gun but with a signaling rocket, today or yesterday actually (time zones) me and 3 friends (1 female 2 males) were talking about how much Twilight sucks ass and were bashing it. We were down by the fishing docks on the north strip of the island watching the fishermen unload their catch when apparently a twi-hard overheard us behind some shipping basins (for stowing fish). She apparently just got off her fathers boat, and had a whole bunch of equipment. Including a red Orion single shot/use hand-held rocket flare (you know those tubes that you are suppose to hit the bottom and the rocket flies out? anyways she overheard us talking and pulled out this flare, from her basket of stuff. The last thing I herd was the cap flying off the front. With a loud psshhh sound my friend yelped and dropped to the ground. The flre bounced off him and flew to the ground. We kicked the flare away, just then the parachute popped out and a bright red light nerly blinded all of us. Four fishermen ran over to help, one saw everything and restrained the twi-hard (who was kicking and screaming). My friends left arm was sizzling where the rocket moter had burned him (thankfully not the para-flare or it would have been much worse). One of the fishermen shoved all of us in his pickup truck and drove us to the local hospital where my friend is still unable to completely use his left arm. The girl is being held on $50,000 bail for attempted murder with a deadly weapon. We plan to go to court in a week with all of us as witnesses.

This type of nastiness is what happens when young people refuse to be accepting in the cold fate of reality and continue to be deluded by such idealizations of romance. Stephanie Meyer's next book should confront what usually happens to teens in such a lusty relationship. The woman ends up pushing around a baby carriage to her shift at the Dairy Queen while the man spends the money for the baby clothes' on a new spoiler for his 91 Accord. Why not further stamp out the so-called innocent teen years?

Getting Tagged

Army Wife Toddler Mom tagged me in one of those blog loopdy-loops. Not gonna be a pariah after almost getting beat up for being slow on supporting VALOUR-IT, so here goes. I'm supposed to write a couple sentences on page 56 from my nearest book. It happens to be Paul Rieckhoff's Chasing Ghosts. From pg. 56:

Walls were collapsed and missing; the windows were all blasted. The looters had stolen anything of value before U.S. forces had arrived. The locals knew where the money was. The ministry building was one of the tallest in the city, and the stairs seemed to last forever...

Grand New Party and a New Creepy Breeding Program

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Like Republican Pod People seeking to dominate American society, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam advocate tax benefits for married couples who haphazardly breed as a method of wooing working-class voters in their new book "Grand New Party". Ross Douthat is one of those Atlantic smart-kid types, and Reihan Salam had the gall to badmouth the classic movie Fletch (not winning a lot of friends over on this end). Anyways, Kerry Howley offers her impressions of the book seeking a new GOP paradigm at TPM:

Privileging one, dominant idea of the family comes with costs that R&R never really grapple with in their breezy book, and those costs fall almost exclusively on one gender. Through the tax code, R&R wish to change the relative prices of women's options, rendering childlessness more costly and early motherhood less so. They want the federal government to stake a position on the proper role of women, and that role involves a heterosexual marriage with children. While conceding that this is politically infeasible at the moment, R&R write that "we should be willing to stigmatize illegitimacy by tying a tax relief to responsible parenting." (Responsible parenting=parenting by legally married couples.) This is a policy that punishes poor women unable to find marriageable men, gay and lesbian partners unable to access legal marriage, and any other number of people who are responding rationally to their environment, doing the best they know how for the kids they have.

Please allow me to be more blunt. Children already get help from Uncle Sucker, as property taxes pay for the schooling of these filthy, little urchins. Now this "modern conservative" wants to reward "responsible" parenting with tax benefits, which would imply that the federal government should set some kind of "societal standard" about what a proper parent is. This represents the lack of respect for a constitutionally-limited republic, and shows a willingness by the new political zeitgeist to buy off votes from the public troff. Totally shameless seems to be the new norm.

The unintended consequences of government-intervention in this regard range from the average joe's taxes going up to some Brave New World type scenario to breed beneficial voting patterns for whoever is in charge. Douthat and Salam seek to capitalize on cultural conservatives values with the promise of the government cheese, but they oughta know that the best things about the American government is a constitution to keeps the King of England out of your face, laws providing for natural rights of our citizens , and strong military/law enforcement institutions to keep enemies/criminals from destroying society. Everything else is just politicians trying to rip you off.

Extreme Gonzo

Classic Ralph Steadman

Ralph Steadman talks about his relationship with Hunter S. Thompson for the upcoming Gonzo movie in the NY Sun. Sounds a lot better than the crap mainstream Hollywood is putting out.

Freedom Lives!

SCOTUS has ruled 5-4 on the constitutionality of the 2nd amendment, and it is indeed a huge victory for gun rights. From Yahoo News:

Silent on central questions of gun control for two centuries, the Supreme Court found its voice Thursday in a decision affirming the right to have guns for self-defense in the home and addressing a constitutional riddle almost as old as the republic over what it means to say the people may keep and bear arms.

Bob Barr issued a statement lauding the decision as "one of the Supreme Court’s most important rulings on behalf of liberty".

While the Supreme Court has put to bed the long-held debate over whether the second amendment applies to individuals or "official" militias like the National Guard, Reason takes a dump in the victory pie by saying that Justice Scalia interprets the amendment as only applying to self-defense and not protection from a tyrannical government. Also, the road ahead is not without challenges as authoritarian lapdogs in the media are still calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment and outlandish gun-control policies remain in place, such as Mayor Nickels of Seattle trying to limit law-abiding gunowners from having concealed weapons in the city.

On a personal note, my zombie protection kit remains free from confiscation by the feds at the moment. Thank goodness!

You Better Read This Book

Get Your Ass To Mars

NASA photos from the Phoenix Mars Lander

It had long been suspected that ice existed on Mars, but the Phoenix Mars Lander offers proof that there is H20 on Mars, which sublimed from its solid state (ice) to a gaseous state (water vapor) in the footprint of the Phoenix Mars Lander. The Arizona Daily Star has details, pretty cool stuff.

Of course, this opens up a flood of philosophical and cultural questions for our currently earth-bound civilization. Will humans come back from Mars being super-intelligent from coexisting with the Martians ala Stranger in a Strange Land. Will ice become the most valued commodity in the galaxy ala Ice Pirates (which I thought was undeserving of a lowly 11 at Rotten Tomatoes when Jingle All the Way got an 18)? Or will it become a battleground between an evil corporation against Kuato and his band of rebels ala Total Recall? I for one plan on moving to the Red Planet as soon as sustainable living conditions are developed and the first casino opens in order to get off this lousy rock of authoritarianism. I just hope the immigration procedures aren't as harsh as this:

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

"The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" is the name of a novel within a novel from Philip K Dick's legendary Man in the High Castle. It's a very bizarre and disorienting story about a world where the Allies lost in World War II and the Nazis and Japanese occupy America and treat us like second-class citizens (many others are slaughtered mercilessly). But there is one brave man who writes a book from the Rocky Mountains, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy", about how the Allies won and the world is so much different.

My mind gets spun up at times, and I wonder if there is an alternate world somewhere of things that were done differently after 9/11. The President makes an appeal for all young men and women to join the Armed Forces or diplomatic-type professions, and Afghanistan is shortly invaded by a coalition of nations and the Taliban/Al-Qaeda thugs are roundly defeated. Consumption of oil declines as the president urges Americans and European nations to starve Saudi Arabia of their monetary base, since they were ultimately responsible for this sick brand of Wahhabism that has plagued our society. Through strong diplomatic undertakings, corrupt regimes in the Middle East fall one-by-one as our moderate allies such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt become emboldened. Al-Qaeda is roundly rejected by nations such as Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria as they see what ill terrorism can bring after the 9/11 attacks. Saudi Arabia is coerced into installing some semblance of a modern democracy. Oh wait...it's April Fool's Day. Sorry folks!

Old but Relevant Quote

I recall reading Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" on my first deployment and the quote on the first page provided some insight into why we do things that doesn't necessarily benefit ourselves. The rationale being service to others is what makes humanity different than the rest of the animal kingdom. I thought of it last night before drifting off to sleep and thought I should share. Make of it what you want. It's from John Donne from long long ago:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Book Review: Generation Me is our worthless generation

I was able to order the 2006 book "Generation Me" by Dr. Jean M. Twenge while over here in Iraq and give it a good read in my downtime. It was a well-written book that conducted statistical analysis of folks, like me, born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The book does become repetitive at times, but it definitely drives the point home that due to the obsession we have with ourselves and compulsive hedonism, our generation is in a lot of trouble.

There is an excerpt of Dr. Twenge's book that can be found here, and I've taken out a quote that I think sums up our generation pretty well.

"The individual has always come first, and feeling good about yourself has always been a primary virtue. Generation Me's expectations are highly optimistic: they expect to go to college, to make lots of money, and perhaps even to be famous."

This self-centered approach to the world is not conducive to solve any of the world's mounting problems. Terrorism, environmental woes, and massive national debt are issues that are not going to be resolved by putting up Facebook pictures of the latest frat party. The media empire has fed us a long list of idols we should falsely worship. Paris Hilton, a worthless woman who has had every opportunity handed to her to do something meaningful, but chooses to wallow in her own self-decadence. Football players with drug charges are paraded around on TV with their entourages like they're some kind of heros. Truly, it is the celebration of stupidity and apathy. Politics of my generation seems to be more about looking out for your own self-interest and just attacking the other side instead of actually trying to fully comprehend what the issues are (see the chickenhawks and hippies tag). What the hell has America become! During WWII young men and women pulled together to defeat a common foe. Now a small percentage of the population is sent to two ongoing conflicts and other parts of the world while the majority of "Generation Me" drowns in it's own opulence. The book also points out that young people are just "so depressed", because their employers don't give them a salary for a BMW and a condo. Most people go to college not to learn, but rather to get a high paying salary in a good job afterwards. Unfortunately, material possessions mean nothing when the society you live in is completely messed up (think of the Roman Empire).

I believe it's time to seriously re-examine our common values. One thing I've learned in the military is that the paradigm of endless consumption wrought on the citizenry is utter bullshit. You really don't need all the crap the companies try to sell you (did anyone get the new iPhone!). I strongly believe that the government and the large corporations have an interest in keeping the citizenry pacified with endless gadgets and government programs to keep us in debt and to shut us up. But by buying into this nonsense like sheep, that does not absolve us of responsibility. Now I'm not advocating that everyone go run out and join the military, even though we do need more good people. What I am suggesting is for these little darlings to devote some "precious" time to getting smart abut the current issues we are grappling with in the modern world. Then perhaps they can take it upon themselves to contribute in some way to making society as a whole better.

Paris Hilton: stupid, lazy, hedonistic, and fabulous. The symbol of my lousy generation.