The One With Aldacron

There are a lot of old TV movies and miniseries that I’d love to see because I was too young when they originally aired, or because I really enjoyed them back then. Most, if not all, I could find with a simple search on Amazon. But, unfortunately, I really need a version with Korean subtitles for my wife. So whenever I find one here in Korea, I snap it up. A few weeks back, I found Roots.

I know I watched Roots as a kid, but I don’t remember much at all other than the name Kunta Kinte (but that could be because I’ve heard Koreans talk about the character over the years — it was a big hit here when it aired a few years after its original run in the States). Last night, we finally got around to watching the first episode. Two things struck me. The first was that I never realized LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge in Star Trek: The Next Generation) played the role of Kunta Kinte. The second was the breasts.

Most of the first episode takes place in Africa. In several scenes, women are running around topless. That in itself is not what struck me, but the fact that a TV movie airing in 1977 could show breasts. A bit of googling around shows that this was the first time ABC had intentionally shown breasts on prime-time television. In 1977. And from what I can find, there doesn’t seem to have been a major outcry, despite there having been nearly 30 million viewers of the first episode (according to Wikipedia).

Fast forward 27 years to Super Bowl XXXVIII. Nearly 540,000 complaints were lodged with the FTC when Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed for a half second during the half-time show. What happened in the nearly three decades between Roots and Nipplegate? Were parents really less Puritanical in the 70s? My memory of that decade is somewhat stunted, given that I was born in ’71. I know the Sexual Revolution was still going on, in concert with Women’s Lib. I recall plunging necklines, transparent tops, women going bra-less (nipples everywhere),  and the Farrah Fawcett poster. But I really have no point of reference on the general attitudes and mores of the time.

I’m constantly amazed by the ridiculously conservative views toward sex that the current generation of parents espouse. And I’ve long had the impression that we’ve moved somewhat backward in the past couple of decades. But I didn’t realize how far we’d regressed until now.

Councillor Colin Hall, the new Lord Mayor of Leicester, is turning tradition on its head and taking on the Anglican Church in the process. He appointed a secularist as Chaplain and refused to attend a traditional cathedral service that welcomes new Lord Mayors. It gets better.

Hall has also announced the banning of prayers before monthly council meetings, calling the practice “outdated, unnecessary and intrusive”. He added: “I consider that religion, in whatever shape or form, has no role to play at all in the conduct of council business. This particularly applies in Leicester, where the majority of council members, myself included, do not regularly attend any particular faith service.” His chaplain has backed the move: “I think it’s a good move because saying Christian prayers picks out one particular stance of people in the city. It’s rather divisive, in my view.”

Can you imagine what sort of firestorm would erupt if someone banned prayers before a city council meeting in an American state like Texas? I would love to hear about it. Let’s get Councillor Hall packed up and shipped over to the States. I don’t think we can find a secular politician in the States who actually follows his principals rather than pandering to the ridiculous ideologies and superstitions of voters.

Now this is an initiative I could get behind, provided I were a Chinese student studying in Japan.

Japanese AV star with a doctorate, Anri Suzuki, 24, is having sex with Chinese students for free in Japan to apologize for her country’s invasion of China.

I like how they call her an “AV star with a doctorate” (for the uninitiated, AV means “adult video”). I think that one will become a new example in my English classes.

We all know that political candidates’ positions on critical issues usually depend on whose votes they are trying to win. We want to believe that they are for or against something because of personal conviction, because it’s right or wrong. Sometimes that sort of candidate actually comes along. But we have been disappointed time and again by candidates who take one stance on an issue in the primaries, only to soften or reverse their position in the general election. It’s a game that’s been played for a very long time. And it has come to the point where the media no longer even try to pretend a candidate’s position is rooted in belief.

Take this article from the New York Times, where one paragraph bluntly lays out the reasons some Republican candidates have to support or oppose Arizona’s immigration law.

Several Republican candidates have found themselves caught between supporting the law to attract primary voters who may not reflect the views of those casting ballots in a general election and opposing it with a mind toward attracting Latino voters.

There’s no attempt to take into account anyone’s personal beliefs here. It’s all strategy. Sure, this comes from the pen of a journalist, but we can often see quotes from campaign insiders along the same lines. This is how ridiculous our political system has become. Do we even know what someone really believes anymore?

It seems even Obama is no different. We thought so, we starry-eyed liberals dreaming of a brighter future, an epic rise from the depths to which the Bush administration caused our country to sink. And while Obama has maintained some of his positions, no one will forget that he started shifting to the middle as soon as the primaries were over. Nor that he has continued many of the Bush policies he told us he was opposed to.

Yes, I know politicians have been pandering to the voters for as long as we’ve had politicians. But there’s not even any guessing about it anymore. We are supposed to make our election choices based upon a candidate’s positions, then we read in the media that a candidate has taken a particular position in order to win over a particular group now in the primaries or later in the general. And what, we’re supposed to pretend we didn’t read it? We’re supposed to shrug our shoulders and just accept that that’s politics? What sort of twisted, psychotic system is that?

Remember all the vehement denials from the Bush administration when allegations first surfaced that they had tortured terrorism suspects? We’ve gone from that, to this.

“Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” Bush said of the terrorist who master-minded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He said that event shaped his presidency and convinced him the nation was in a war against terror.

“I’d do it again to save lives.”

Obama’s refusal to pursue an investigation into Bush administration torture has led us to a place where Bush can casually admit in a public forum that he waterboarded people. And claim he’d do it again. That means that future presidents can do the same, without fear or concern. Probably without any need to keep it a secret. Obama set a precedent — it’s OK to torture, despite it being against international treaties to which the US is a signatory.

That this man can come and admit to torture like this, and nothing will be done about it, is shameful. And wholly against what is supposed to be the guiding principles of the American system. I say supposed to be because it is becoming more and more evident that any talk of justice and liberty in the United States is nothing more than a fantasy. And it will likely get worse before, or even if, it gets better.

Israel’s leaders have been heading toward the deep end for some time. Now, they’ve irrevocably gone off it.

It appears unlikely the conflict will fade soon. With at least one new ship already setting sail to challenge the sea blockade, another flotilla being planned in London, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva voting to create a committee of investigation and the world body’s secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, saying Israel’s policy “punishes innocent civilians,” Israeli officials maintained they would not relent.

That’s just nuts. It reinforces the perception, real or imagined, that Israel’s real aim is not security but severe punishment of the Palestinian people. Worse, it has turned a former ally into, in all likelihood, a new enemy (Turkey), and has put other friendly Arab nations in a serious predicament. If they continue down this path of belligerence, they’re going to force nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to reevaluate their relationships with Israel and the United States. In the name of security and self-defense, they are making themselves less secure and much more vulnerable.

Then there’s the revelation that one of the civilians killed in the flotilla raid was an American citizen. To date, the US has avoided joining the chorus from the rest of the world in aggressively criticizing Israel, taking a more misguidedly restrained tone. They’ve actually gone as far as hinting that the flotilla should be blamed, by saying the ships never should have tried to run the blockade. From the mouth of Joe Biden (emphasis mine):

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Biden pointed out that Israel had given pro-Palestinian activists the option of unloading their cargo at the Ashdod port, and offered to bring it to the Gaza Strip on their behalf.

“They’ve said, ‘Here you go. You’re in the Mediterranean. This ship — if you divert slightly north you can unload it and we’ll get the stuff into Gaza,’”, he said. “So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza? Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping… 3,000 rockets on my people.

“Look, you can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not — but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know — they’re at war with Hamas — has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in.”

No, Joe, you can’t argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not. That’s the whole friggin’ point. That’s why the rest of the civilized world is in an uproar right now. That has to be the absolute dumbest thing you could be saying right now. Dumb enough to have come from Bush. And what’s more, that was before the revelation that there’s a dead American.

Conservatives will likely go on with their blind support of Israel and ignore the American death. Given that he was of Turkish descent (read, not white), he was The Other and not a Real American™. But, Obama is going to face pressure from some of the liberal groups who don’t unconditionally support a rogue regime like that currently in control of Israel.  I have no idea which way he’ll go.

Regardless of the ultimate position of the US, Israel is certainly thumbing their nose at the rest of the world. And what happens if Turkish warships escort the next ship to attempt to run the blockade (see below)? Can we really trust the Israelis not to do anything rash? If you ask me, they’re more unpredictable than North Korea.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is whining about the congressional authorization to lift the ban on gay marriage. His argument? Christian soldiers will lose their ‘right’ to be bigots.

Some people think allowing open homosexuality in the military means nothing more than opening a door that was previously closed. It means much more than that. It would mean simultaneously ushering out the back door anyone who disapproves of homosexual conduct, whether because of legitimate privacy and health concerns or because of moral or religious convictions.

What is it about people like Perkins that makes them fail to grasp the fact that their Freedom of Religion does not grant them the right to inhibit the freedom of others because of their own  personal biases and beliefs? It must be a mental disorder. Oh, yeah. Religion.

It seems Israel isn’t content with being loathed throughout the Arab world. Over the past couple of years, they’ve been taking steps to be despised in the West as well. It’s bad enough that they’ve created a humanitarian crisis with their blockade of Gaza. But now, they have to go and raid a flotilla of ships carrying aid to the blockaded zone, killing several civilians in the process.

The military said naval commandos descending from a helicopter onto the deck of a Turkish-flagged ship were assaulted by armed activists. Military footage showed activists swarming around the commandos as they rappelled from a helicopter one by one, hitting them with sticks until they fell to the deck, throwing one off the ship and hurling what the military said was a firebomb.

Speaking alongside the Canadian prime minister, Netanyahu expressed “regret” for the loss of life but said the soldiers “had to defend themselves, defend their lives, or they would have been killed.”

So Israeli commandos board a ship in international waters, the civilians on the ship defend themselves with whatever tools they have available (maybe a couple of guns?) and the commandos start killing them. Sorry, but you don’t get to claim self defense when you are the one who initiated the assault.

And let’s not forget that America is funding this sort of behavior. The US has 30 billion dollars earmarked for Israel over the next 10 years, and another 250 million recently allocated for an Israeli-built missile defense system.

Of course, it seems no matter what Israel does in the name of “defense”, or how many times they are publicly rebuked for their behavior, I doubt anything will really ever change. In America, at least, political support for Israel is generally taken for granted no matter which side of the aisle you’re on. And there is an element of the right that find this event to be something we should be celebrating. Consider this post over at Right Wing News comparing some reactions from the left and right. The piece starts off by insulting the Palestinian people and dismissing reality (emphasis mine).

Honestly, I don’t find the Palestinian people to be the least bit sympathetic. They’re backwards, genocidal, hyper-violent, sad sack Nazi wannabes led by terrorists who would happily murder every Jew on the planet if they could get away with it.

Then there are the Israelis. They’re a tiny Western  democracy surrounded by backwards savages who want to murder them down to the last child because they’re Jews.

Typical of a right wing loon to ignore history and try to make things fit his skewed view of the world. You can imagine where it goes from there. And, as to be expected on such a site, many of the comments are absolutely despicable.

One has to wonder how deep Israel’s hole will go and what it means for world stability.

Tebaggers in Arizona are in a huff over all the boycott talk around the country. And some of them have decided to do something about it.

“Boycotting can work both ways,” one viewer said.

“I’m keeping a list of all who boycott us. I intend to boycott them,” said another viewer.

Judy Valencia of Sedona just canceled plans to take her family to Disneyland this summer.

“I think if they are going to be childish and say we’re not going to come to your state, we’re not going to come to your state,” Valencia said.

Yeah, right.

Given the proclivity for the teabaggers and other right wing nutjobs to be against practical education, this apparent lack of basic maths skill doesn’t surprise me. Maybe this can be a real world lesson for them. Heh. Who am I kidding? They aren’t going to learn anything from this. They still think Sarah Palin has a chance at being president.

California gubernatorial candidate, Republican Douglas Hughes, has a solution to the problem of what to do with pedophiles. If he wins the election, he promises to give them 3 choices:

1. Leave our State of California permanently;

2. Live on Santa Rosa Island (a self supporting community for pedophiles and sexual offenders);

3. Remain in prison for life;

Seriously? A community on Santa Rosa Island?

Aside from the civil liberties issues this brings up, there’s a larger problem that must be dealt with first. Our child protection laws across the nation need to be overhauled so that they actually do what they are meant to do. In one case after another over the last few years, the very people who are supposed to be protected by these laws have been prosecuted under them. The result of these abuses of the law by overzealous prosecutors is that children have wound up being labeled as child molesters and suffering the same punishments. If you want some examples, search through the blogs of Dr. Marty Klein or Johnathan Turley. There are too many to count. Typically they come from cases of sexting by school kids, but sometimes involve consensual sex between minors. Take, for example, the case of Genarlow Wilson from Georgia a few years back.

At a New Year’s Eve party, when Wilson was 17, he had intercourse with one 17-year-old girl and received oral sex from another 15-year-old. Accused of raping the first girl, he went on trial and a jury found him innocent. However, because the age of consent in Georgia is 16, he was also charged with child molestation for the oral sex the younger girl performed.

But there was one other charge the jury had to decide on. The second girl in the videotape was 15, and the age of consent in Georgia is 16. And under state law, prosecutors charged Wilson with aggravated child molestation. To those close to the young man, it was an outrage.

“Nobody could believe that this is the law,” Mann said.

Even jurors frowned on the charge. “A bad law, absolutely,” Manigault said.

And in Georgia, that they’d had oral sex made matters worse. Until 1998, oral sex between husband and wife was illegal, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. In Wilson’s case, even though he is only two years older than the girl, she was 15 and — willing or not — could not consent legally that night.

Whatever their feelings about the law, jurors felt they had no choice but to find Wilson guilty of aggravated child molestation. Moments later, back in the jury room, jurors were told for the first time that the conviction came with a mandatory sentence of at least 10 years in prison. In addition, Wilson would be forced to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

This sort of ridiculousness has happened across the country, in red and blue states. The Georgia Legislature did finally revise the law and Wilson was eventually freed (now consensual sex between minors in Georgia is a misdemeanor — still ridiculous but better than before). If  something similar were to happen in California under Douglas Hughes, people like Genarlow Wilson, being branded as sex offenders, would be shipped off to Pedophiliaville if they didn’t choose exile or life in prison.

As long as our child protection laws are too broad and our governing officials too conservative, this sort of injustice will continue. Yes, we need to punish people who actually rape children. But we damned well better be sure that it really is rape first. Arbitrarily declaring an age of consent and declaring all sexual intercourse with anyone below that age to be molestation is not the way to go about it. So until that issue gets sorted, dreaming up more severe punishments for pedophiles needs to wait. And loons like Douglas Hughes need to be kept far, far away from government.