The State of Illinois Vs. Common Sense

Moral absolutism is the belief that wrong is wrong and right is right, and never the two shall meet. The context of a crime is moot; it’s clear cut, black and white and without shades of gray. To a moral absolutist, the actions of a woman who steals food in order to feed her starving family are not justified — she broke the law, period.
Sometimes it’s hard to deny that someone committed a crime, especially when they admit to doing it, but what happens when the punishment doesn’t fit the crime? At what point do you surrender common sense for the sake of convicting a criminal? What is justice when you can’t justify punishing the guilty?

"Where am I supposed to look again...?"

Meet Loren Swift. Mr. Swift was arrested in Illinois for marijuana possession with intent for distribution. Police found 25 lbs. of pot in his house and 50 lbs. worth of marijuana plants, which is quite a formidable stash by anyone’s standards. He had a miniature greenhouse for his horticultural pursuits and a room specifically designed for drying the buds for smoking. Police found several pieces of paraphernalia used for storing and smoking pot, along with a scale for measuring. Mr. Swift also confessed to police that he smoked pot and at no point did he ever try to deny it.

A jury of his peers recently found him innocent of his crimes.

Despite how insane that ruling seems on the surface, in actuality, the details paint a different picture. Mr. Swift is a 59 year-old Vietnam War veteran who needs a cane just to move around. At one point, they contemplated postponing his trial because doctors said that one of his feet would probably need to be amputated before his sentence would be passed. Swift claimed he smoked the pot to help alleviate the pain in his legs/ankles and to help with his post-traumatic stress disorder (he was a Vietnam veteran after all). He claimed that he never sold drugs to anyone, which the police admitted to having no physical evidence of in the first place, which is funny because that’s the main reason why he was on trial. Sure, his pot stash was ridiculous enough to assume he was going to sell it, but he could have been keeping it all to himself.
Regardless of its purpose, he smoked and possessed — I believe the technical term for it is “a shit-ton” — of pot. Medical marijuana is not legal in the state of Illinois, so his little “I need it for the pain” shtick won’t stick. He broke the law, period.

However, according to our current drug laws, if Mr. Swift was found guilty of this crime, the minimum punishment would have been serving six years in prison. Let me repeat that: If the jury found this 59 year-old, crippled Vietnam veteran guilty of possessing and smoking pot, he would have had to serve a MINIMUM sentence of six years in prison.

Given the circumstances, the jury exercised one of their not-very-well-known rights; the right of jury nullification. When a person is sentenced to a crime, it’s not only the convicted person on trial, but the law as well. If a jury finds a law unjust, they have the right to “nullify” it by acquitting someone, even when there’s insurmountable evidence to the contrary.

Did Swift commit a crime? From the law’s perspective, undoubtedly. Is the punishment worth a minimum of 6 years in a penitentiary? I would say hell no, especially when compared to other crimes of a more severe magnitude. Then again, our drug laws are broken as hell and beyond extreme in punishment. The only thing more messed up than this nation’s drug policy is the health care system… which is kind of ironic.

To read about the story, click [here].

Oh, and Happy Groundhog’s Day.

“Don’t drive angry, now.”

WHAT THE–!?: Dog Edition

Deep in the semi-arctic tundra known as Russia, there lives a beast. It is a foul creature, as terrifying as it is large. It could swallow a double decker bus with its gaping maw, and it prays on the villagers of–

I’m kidding — it’s just a dog. An enormous dog, but still, it’s just a dog… despite appearances.

Oh my God.

The breed name of this monstrous, furry beast is the Caucasian Shepherd, also known as the Caucasian Mountain Dog.
“But, Boone,” you say with a condescending tone. “That dog isn’t white. Why call it Caucasian?”
It’s named after the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia.
“But you said Russia and–”
There’s a Georgia in Asia, too; not just the United States.
“Oh.”

Holy shit.

The dog was specifically bred to protect livestock, primarily sheep. It would literally walk with the sheep, blend in with the herd and then attack approaching wolves. Despite being dark in color, the dog can blend in with a sheep herd because of its bushy fur. Also, it’s about the same size as a full grown sheep.
It can grow to be up to 29 inches tall from shoulder to feet and can weigh up to 160 lbs. In other words, no matter who you are, odds are that it’s about as big as you are, if not bigger.

Jesus Christ.

If you think this dog is cute and might make a good pet, you might want to wait a moment. The breed has a decent temperament and is great around children, but won’t respect/listen to them. In fact, the dog only responds to people whom it sees as being superior to it. Basically, it has a very “alpha dog” mentality and is not recommended for anyone who isn’t completely serious and experienced in handling dogs. However, should you actually train this dog, it’s apparently very loyal and protective… not to mention terrifying to intruders.

AAAAAHHHH!

And because I know you’re curious, this is what they look like as a puppy.

Only 2 months old... WTF

National Body Challenge 2009

Before I get into this blog entry, I have to give credit where credit is due; a friend of mine (Thanks, Emily!) pointed me to a completely absurd commercial that I just had to talk about.
It’s insane and goofy, yet filled with mixed messages. And people in food costumes.

I’m of course talking about the new commercial for Discovery Health’s National Body Challenge 2009.
Haven’t seen it? You’re not alone. But hey, thanks to YouTube, you’re going to get an education!

Ooooookaaay…? Odd.
For the sake of this post, let’s ignore the weird quasi-fetish on display here (what would you call that, anyway — dressing in a food costume and porking…. A Foody, perhaps?) and focus on the message.

Based on the commercial, it’s implied that the fast foods are the ones who are caring, long-lasting lovers who crave attention and that vegetables are the attractive new flings. Shouldn’t that be flipped around? I mean, I eat burgers and pizza because, even though I know they’re bad for me, they’re exciting and tasty. Does anyone outside of a PeTA rally really see healthy vegetables as the exciting alternative to hamburgers and fries?

Here’s a more honest (debatable) and funnier (because I wrote it) approach to the concept of that commercial….

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It’s completely dark. Obscured by shadows, a woman in a celery costume flips on a light to reveal herself and her surroundings. She’s inside a house, specifically a bedroom, and she drops the suitcase she had been carrying. She enthusiastically says, “I’m home, honey! Did you miss me?”
As she speaks, she looks up and sees a man in bed with a woman dressed in a hamburger outfit. The man, completely startled, whimpers out a pathetic, “Hi…. I… didn’t expect you home so–-”
In complete shock, celery-woman runs out of the room and puts a hand to her mouth to try to hold back from openly sobbing.
The man, dressed in a wife-beater and boxer shorts, desperately follows her outside while calling out to her. “Honey? Honey, come back!”

Outside, celery-woman is crying, her face buried in her hands as she’s leaning against the side of the house. The man comes out of the front door and runs to her. “It’s not what it looks like. She was–-”
Celery-woman socks the man in the eye.
“How could you!?” she says through gritted teeth. “How could you do this to me? Don’t you care about me at all? After all I’ve done, I…. I feel like an idiot.” She turns away from him in disgust.
There’s an awkward pause.

“How many times?” she asks.
“Oh, Sheila, that’s–-”
“Just answer me — how many times, and don’t lie to me! How many times did you go behind my back to be with her, or others like — oh God, are there others!? Oh no! No, don’t say anything! I don’t even want to know! I feel sick just thinking about it.”
“Look, I–-” The man tries to put his arms around her, but she slaps his hands away.
“No!” she yells at him. “Don’t you even touch me!”

The two stare at each other in an uncomfortable silence. The man sees pain in her eyes — pain he caused her. She breathes in deeply, holds her chin up and approaches him.
“You’re sick, Jerry,” she says with a matter-of-fact tone. “You’re a pig. And I hope you can live with yourself and what you’ve done.”

Celery-woman walks to her car and drives away. The man collapses to his knees and starts sobbing. The screen fades to black, and white letters appear on the screen: “Vegetables deserve to be treated better. Start eating right today.”

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I think I need to stop writing about relationships and couples fighting. People might begin to suspect things aren’t on the up-and-up with me.

Happy Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS!

Cinematic Titanic

Sorry for being gone for so long, friends. I’ve been busy… I mean, lazy.

Before I get into the main thrust of this post, I’d like to briefly mention the film The Spirit. Not long ago, I wrote about how I thought the movie was going to suck, and I’d like to point out that I stated that before there were any advance reviews of the film.

Well, The Spirit is out now, and I recently dragged one of my friends along to go watch it with me. My reasoning was that if the film was going to be bad, I didn’t want to suffer through it alone.
I wrote an in-depth review of the film elsewhere on the internet, so if you’re curious about my thoughts, click [here].

Now… where was I? Oh yeah! I was going to tell you about going to see Cinematic Titanic live in Chicago.

For those who still need a refresher on it, Cinematic Titanic is the latest pet project of Joel Hodgson, creator and former host of the show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. CT (as it will be called from here on out) is basically MST3K except without the forced plots and commercial breaks. Oh, and you get to see the whole film. (MST3K would sometimes edit movies to fit in the time allotted.)

Now that we’re all up to speed, I went to the live performance with a few friends (and a friend of a friend). I had heard that for live performances, the cast of CT would perform films that hadn’t come to DVD. On a whim, I checked out if the film we were going to see was listed on their website, and it was. After seeing its title, we were all a ‘twitter. The title of the craptacular film we were going to see was called… drum roll please… Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks. Allow me to repeat that so you can soak it in….

FRANKENSTEIN’S CASTLE OF FREAKS.

That title just reeks of awfulness, doesn’t it?
Despite the adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can certainly judge this film by its title because it was terrible. It had one of the most incomprehensible plots I have ever seen, and I’ve watched Manos: The Hands of Fate and The Star Wars Holiday Special.

The plot and its details are sketchy at best, so the only thing that I can say for certain about the film was that it centered around Count Frankenstein’s (yes, I said, “Count”) eponymous “castle of freaks” and the experiments he conducts there. Early in the film, Franky’s niece shows up for no reason*, along with her financé and her beguiling and busty best friend who just happens to get naked a lot. Oh, and a hunchback and a shrewish, heavy-set scullery maid slap each other around and have rough sex. Also, a dwarf befriends a caveman. And this film takes place in nineteenth century Romania.

-coughs-

Seriously, this film is all kinds of messed up. Then again, what would you expect from an English language Italian film made in the 1970s?

The general feeling of the whole night was really loose. The performers had their scripts perched on music stands while they sat off to the sides of the stage. In center stage, an enormous screen was pulled down for the film to project on to. It was like a roundtable Q&A session, except they were facing away from us.

The CT cast was really excited, and you could tell they enjoyed being there. There was a great sense of comedic spirit and comraderie amongst them — when someone’s joke went over well, the other members would applaud them or give them a thumb’s up. At one point, Frank Conniff actually turned around and thanked us for laughing at his joke because he didn’t think anyone would get it.

As expected, the whole evening was great. The CT crew had a film that was perfect to make fun of, and they did an awesome job of ripping it a new one. I had an absolute blast.
But then I went and humiliated myself at the meet-and-greet after the show.

My favorite cast member from MST3K was Trace Beaulieu, the actor behind Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forrester. Since he is a member of CT, he was there that night, and he stuck around to sign autographs and speak to the fans. I got all excited at the chance to speak with him…. Unfortunately, I made such an ass out of myself that I didn’t actually get to “talk” to him.
Here’s a general synopsis on how the interaction went….

(I approach him, giggling like a school girl near her crush.)
TRACE: “Well, look at you! You’re downright giddy!”
ME: Pthbth frrvnt thbpt shmnk thhfnerrrr….
(He signs my copy of Cinematic Titanic: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians)
TRACE: “I hope you liked the show!”
ME: “Shmengy thmem nrptk ngtkomlrkr.”
TRACE: “Thanks for coming down!”
(I’m then pushed down the line to meet the rest of the cast.)
ME: “I LIKED YOUR SHOW!”

Luckily, I wasn’t such an ass-hat around the rest of the cast. And I must say, Joel couldn’t have been nicer. He was really outgoing and happy to be there — shaking hands, smiling and taking photos with fans. You just got a good vibe off of him.
Frank Conniff, on the other hand, was sick as hell. He mentioned before the show that he got a cold coming into Chicago, but it didn’t seem to hinder his performance. Afterwards, it was really apparent that he was under the weather, and considering how crappy our weather has been, that’s saying something.

It was a great night. I wish I could watch their riffing of the movie all over again.

…Hey, wait a minute….

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*That’s not entirely true. When the gang arrives at Frankenstein’s castle, they mention that the niece and her financé came “for their wedding.” Since this “wedding” never takes place and is only spoken of in a single line of dialog with no mention of it again throughout the whole film, I’m chalking their visit up to “no reason.”

My Inappropriate Christmas E-Card

Merry Christmas, everybody!

We’re Going Down!

So all of the United States is talking about about our governor. Everyone in Illinois, however, is talking about how awful the roads are and how terrible the weather has been. Why? Because our LEGO-headed governor being a corrupt douchebag is not news to us. I was seriously surprised to not see this headline in the local papers:
CORRUPTION IN ILLINOIS POLITICS; DOZENS SHOCKED.

Our state hemorrhages money like there’s no tomorrow. We pay taxes out our asses, but do we see results? No. Never. In fact, it came out recently that they’re not doing any preventive plowing (plowing before the baddest parts of snowstorm have hit) or salting the streets where I live because it’s too costly.
Excuse me? I pay enormous amounts of city taxes, sales taxes (the highest in the whole country), state taxes, road tolls, and I even pay for those stupid city stickers so the state can run efficiently and make my life easier. Now they say they won’t even freaking plow the streets in a productive manner because it’s expensive? I’m sorry, but when you have record highs for both automobile accidents and snowfall in a single day and it takes someone (me) an hour and a half to drive three miles, you should pony up a few bucks to get the damn streets plowed. It’s ridiculous.

After living in this state for several years and seeing the administrative incompetence in how money is distributed through our local government, I’m beginning to see Rush Limbaugh’s perspective on the political slur of Tax-and-Spendocrats.

But I didn’t come here to bitch. (“Too late.”) I came here to brag about fulfilling a dream I never knew I had.

Cinematic Titanic, Joel Hodgson’s latest pet project, is coming to perform LIVE in Chicago, and I have tickets to go tomorrow. Jealous? I thought so. *upturns nose, walks away*

Dear Blog

Look, Blog, I know we haven’t been seeing each other much recently. Yes, we both agreed that we’d try a short separation and that we’d see other people. Well, I think I’m ready to come back — that is, if you’ll have me.

Oh, you know me. I haven’t been doing anything in our time apart.
Me? Seeing anyone? No, of course not.

Oh, her? She’s nothing. She was just….
Look, I had writer’s block! What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t write anything! Not only that, but nothing was going on in my life that was even worth writing about. She was there for me when I was feeling down and let me express myself creatively, but I’m back now. I’m wiser and a better person — the person you deserve to have in your life. I’m here to write again.

No, Blog, of course she didn’t mean anything. She was just… for fun.
Besides, you and I were separated at the time, so I — Blog, please don’t turn your back on me. Don’t make this harder than it already is.

I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this. I mean, it’s not like you didn’t see anyone while we were away.

Oh. Really? You didn’t see… anyone? Not a single person?

You don’t mean that, Blog. Blog, please stop saying that.

Look, I can say hurtful things too, you know.

I don’t think you calling me names is going to get us anywhere. I need you to listen to me. Please, Blog. Please hear what I have to say.

Blog… I’m sorry. If I hurt you, I didn’t mean to. You know how much you mean to me.
It hasn’t been easy for either of us, but I think that we can get things back to how they used to be. This is what I want for us — to start over. And this time, I’ll pay more attention to you and attend to your needs. You deserve the best that I can give you.

I love you, Blog. And I always will.

It’s Official: I Hate Me

A friend of mine recently pointed me to an internet personality test. It’s that Jung Myers-Briggs like Indicator Test; you all know the one. The one where they break down your personality through a letter system to state whether you are more Extroverted or Introverted, Judging or Perceiving, etc.

I did the test and the results were… somewhat pleasant. A tad surprising, but for the most part, it appeared to cast me in a decent light. Then again, they wouldn’t just outright say, “You’re an asshole.”

…Would they?

As I read the description, it stated that people with my personality type are “responsible”, “decisive” and “hard working.”
That’s… not entirely true about me, but I’ll buy it. Besides, it sounds… harmless. It’s a tad more square than I’d describe myself, but nothing damning.

Then it started saying things like, “…they honor traditions”, “[respect] authority”, “norm followers” and “stiff”.
Umm… those aren’t really characteristics that I view to be all that positive. But still, I read on. I wanted to see what it had to say about me.

Oh, look! A list of famous people with my personality type! This should be interesting. I always like comparing myself to those of prominence. Let’s see who they have here:
Bettie Davis (Hmph.)
Lyndon Johnson (Ugh.)
William Henry Harrison (Um… I don’t like where this is going.)
George W. Bush (Shit.)
Reverend Billy Graham (Oh, c’mon! You’ve got to be kidding!)
Carrie Nation (Jesus Butt-fucking Christ.)

Now I kind of wish the test would’ve just said, “You’re an asshole,” and had been done with it.
It felt like the personality test makers had jumped into my head, found people that I personally believe have contributed to ruining the world and said, “Hey, these people you hate? THEY’RE YOU!”

Then again, I’ve always been a self-loathing person. It’s almost comforting to know that it’s justified. Almost.

If you would like to see my results for yourself, click [here].
If you want to have your day ruined, take the test by clicking [here].

This is not someone’s birthday

Today marks the birthday of surrealist painter René Magritte, who would be 110 years old if he were alive today. Magritte is one of my favorite artists, having an unmistakable style and a complex view of the world. He was not only an excellent craftsman, but he was a thinker and a conceptual master. He challenged perceptions and always used his art to illustrate complex thoughts. Each work of his was layered and full of imagery that required analysis and multiple views. His paintings felt like dreams come alive, and every one of them is excellently twisted. He truly defined what surrealism was.

For those who want to know more about me and would like engage me on an artistic level, allow me to list some of my personal favorite artists.
1) Classical (Renaissance, Baroque, etc.) – Caravaggio
2) Surrealist – René Magritte
3) Abstract – Georges Braque
4) Contemporary – Norman Rockwell
5) Still Alive – Alex Ross (because I’m a nerd)

That’s just a handful. And like having to pick my favorite movie, these might all change tomorrow. So right now, what’s some of your favorite artists?