Pepper and the Pied Pipers of Palestine

I'll admit it. I can be a pretty opinionated individual. Sometimes, I make up my mind too quickly and sometimes I don't wait to hear both sides of the story. I had been worried this is what had happened, when I went and decided that the Israelites were 100% correct in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "How could anyone else think otherwise?" I often thought to myself, bewildered that there was more than one opinion on the subject.

But I have a lot of Jewish friends and I live in the West, so I figured I was probably getting a biased view of the matter. Maybe the Palestinians really did deserve getting their land back. Maybe they really did have some point or other that I completely missed.

So I decided to go to the Hamas website. Maybe if I could see things from their perspective, the debate as a whole would become clearer to me. So I did. I went on the English version of their website. At first, all that really struck me was the loud chanting that was playing in the background. It was pretty obnoxious. However, it didn't necessarily mean they were wrong. It just meant they kinda weren't exactly the best singers on the planet.

So I went to the heart of the website and began looking at the various articles they had posted. "Settler Savagely attacks Seven Palestinian Farmers in Bethlehem." Alright, so it wasn't the most neutral website I could find. But I figured that was alright, because I had come here to get a perspective. I hadn't been looking for news. And besides, I can appreciate the alliteration. I like doing it, too. My alliteration is more along the lines of, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," but the concept is still the same. Really, these guys don't seem so-

All of a sudden, the words flew at my eyes like a Boeing 767. My bottom jaw quickly disengaged itself from my upper-jaw and I re-read the headline, "Who Says There is No Jewish Nazism?"

Just for the record, I say there is no Jewish Nazism.

My Bad

Hey, all. Just wanted to let you know that the main reason for my lack of posting has been a growing interest in fiction writing. In fact, I've actually just started up a fiction blog called Bete Noire. And no, it doesn't really have anything to do with French people, but the name sure sounds cool, doesn't it?

Anyway, I'm basically going to be posting various serializations on my blog, which I hope you enjoy. My first serialization has long posts, but I think I'm going to do much shorter, internet-friendly posts from now on. So I hope you read and enjoy.

"Asassinate"

Sarah Palin, you're a really special individual. Whenever I've run out of cheap sex jokes or more sophisticated double entendres, I can always count on you to provide a good laugh.

Therefore, I thank you for mispronouncing words and then saying you're just making up new words, just like ol' Will Shakespeare.

In honor of how unique an individual you can be, I've come up with a new word, "asassinate." It's a combination of the words "asinine" and "assassinate." The word asinine is used just because of how applicable it is to this situation, while assassinate is used, because, William Shakespeare created it, and we all know how much you like him.

Definition of asassinate: To butcher a word so horrifically, you might say it's been assassinated. Then, to take that "interpretation" of the word and claim it's a completely new word.

As Elvis Rolls in his Grave...

I think I just gagged, because of this. "What is this?" those of you who don't feel like clicking on the link may ask. Basically, it's Hulu's new concept, a show called, If I Can Dream. It features five vapid individuals who move into a house that has a shiteload of cameras installed into it. Then anyone can go online and watch these five people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These people are supposedly actors, musicians, etc. who will be attempting to launch a career.

They've branded it "post reality entertainment," but in reality (Did you notice that clever use of wordplay, there? Why the hell is it called "post reality," anyway? Is there a reality after reality? I digress...) it's really just a pathetic excuse for voyeurism. Hell, when I first saw the commercial for this show, I actually thought it was a joke.

But I really shouldn't be surprised this show is being made, because it seems to reflect the general direction our society has been moving in. During the 21st century, year by year, it seems to me that the individual has been steadily losing his privacy. The individuals featured on If I Can Dream are freely giving their privacy away, but recently, it seems like a torrent of encroachments on privacy have hit us in the face, without anyone actually asking for it.

There's the new Bing Map app, which is like Google Earth, except that it features a helluva lot more detail. There are certain areas you can look at as if you were walking down the street and get picture-perfect clarity. It's really cool, and I suggest that you try it out, but what does this mean for our privacy? People have always been able to watch you as you walked down the street, but they were never able to watch you from thousands of miles away. Now they can and that's kinda creepy. Even the sea isn't free from our curiousity: Google Earth now allows people to look under the water.

But is this necessarily a bad thing? It's not like Google and Bing are constantly taking pictures of the entire earth or anything. People can't watch you real-time. But the thing is, they're getting so close to that. If they can provide detailed pictures of all outdoor areas, and some indoor areas, through the Internet, isn't real-time video the next step? It's just weird.

But it's not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of people would probably think of this as Orwell's "Big Brother" dystopia coming to haunt us, but I can't bring myself to see it that way. In 1984, the government was always watching you. But this is simply two private corporations providing information to anyone with Internet access. So does it matter that our privacy is being taken away?

I don't think so. Though it's a bit creepy, this technology is like all technology: it has the capacity for both good and evil. Though there's a major creeper factor in the possibility for anyone to be watching you at anytime, think of the boon to law enforcement agencies. If Bing Map got real-time video, the cops could just watch the bank robbers leave the scene of the crime, virtually follow them to their hideout, and pick up the felons there. If someone was kidnapped, it would simply be a matter of following them on video from where they were last seen to wherever they were now.

So I really don't think we should worry about these new developments. We're steadily losing our privacy: it's a fact. But it's not really a bad fact. It's just a change; people usually fear change, but this technology actually has a lot of upside to it. We can now look at the world from our desktop. No matter the potential pitfalls, that's a development to welcome.

Clockwork Orange

If there's one thing I don't get, it's why some people prefer Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange to Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of it. For the most part, I do tend to agree with the idea that the book is always better than the movie. But for this movie, I've really got to bend the rule and say that Kubrick pretty much outshone Burgess.

Because really, what does the book have that the movie doesn't? Most would probably point to the language of the book. But though I find Burgess creating a teenage dialect fascinating, we see plenty of that dialect in the movie. In fact, I like the way the movie uses its dialect better: because it's combined with visuals, the dialect is more easily understood in the movie than in the book. Also, I really felt like the accents of McDowell and his "droogs" really richen the language.

Then there are all the things Kubrick put into his film which weren't in the book, like that chilling scene where Alex was singing, "Singing in the Rain," while he commited a violent act.

Also, the reason why so many people liked the film was because of the beautiful visuals Kubrick is so well known for. Sure, the violence of the book was pretty gruesome, but I would say Kubrick's depiction of the violence was even more gruesome.

It must be said, Burgess's Clockwork Orange did come first and it therefore gets some credit. However, just because it came first doesn't mean it's better.* And it's not even like Burgess would defend his novel: he's blatantly stated that it's not his best work. He even said that he wrote the book in three weeks. So really, Kubrick actually spent more time in the creation of his Clockwork Orange than Burgess did.

And it shows. Kubrick's work is just more deeply thought out.

It showed in the scenery: who can forget that opening scene at the milk bar, with the nude female statues which spat out milk? Sure, it was strange and sexual, but that was what made the movie what it was.

Really I just don't get why some people prefer Burgess's book: Kubrick gives Orange so much more.

*If that rule were true, I guess Epic of Gilgamesh would be the greatest work of all time. Ummm...

No.