~ cnn.com wants to know what internet users have to say to “Do you think sexual preference is a choice?“. does cnn understand tautology? more to the point, do they know that the word ‘preference’ implies a choice being made? if not, then they must also find that gays ‘prefer’ to eat food and ‘prefer’ to breathe clean air. a question about choice is useful is drawing out the president’s prejudice, but in the abstract, this question is a stupid one.
the question is not stupid because ignorant people at cnn and across america do not understand why some people are different than they are; it is stupid because its construction both reveals the opinions of the questioner and directs a certain answer from the listener. why doesn’t cnn ask “are most blacks are uneducated because they are poor, or poor because they are uneducated?” that is about as sensitive and sensible as ‘is preference a choice?’.
we have read the news quite a bit, and we have spoken to a number of our fellow americans; not one of them has the politics of anyone’s sexuality foremost in his or her mind as we approach what many consider to be an election of paramount importance. where does cnn find the notion that americans are frozen in their thoughts until they discover the foundation for the sexual desires and emotions of heteros and homos?
clearly they are trying to milk a few more days out of the kerry/cheney family controversy, in order to futher the meme that kerry is ‘not a good man’, but we don’t think the underlying reason for this controversy is worth a tinker’s damn. getting sidetracked by this bullshit is exactly what the republicans, who want poor and uneducated people to put aside their economic concerns and rely on bigotry to decide their vote. congratulations cnn, on your steadfast position as a political tool.

~ what was bush’s little lecture on undercutting allies in the war on terror? our great friend the dictator of pakistan must not have heard it, as he was busy talking to cnn:

cnn: “Is the world a safer place because of the war in Iraq?”
musharraf: “No. It’s more dangerous. It’s not safer, certainly not.”…
cnn: ” Was it a mistake to have gone to war with Iraq?”
musharraf: ” Well, I would say that it has ended up bringing more trouble to the world.”
–cnn

~ like total sellouts, we used a line from ‘fahrenheit 9/11’ in an argument today. the problem isn’t that we mentioned a fact that appears in the movie ; the evidence is fact regardless of whether or not it is featured in a michael moore movie. our problem is that we sourced our argument to something so sensational; the angry red planet endeavours to stay above the fray of popular culture. our only excuse is that it was more likely that the people whom were logically circling had seen the movie and would be able to nod accordingly than it was they had read the proper issue of the new yorker or article from the washington post. at least they may have seen a poster for the movie as they walked in to ‘white chicks’.

~ when the seas of shit are at full tide, or, if you will, the poppies of shit are in full blossom, a cheering domain name briefly clears the foul air: www.zellout.com. though simple, it certainly beats the typically uninspired, pseudo-political slogans we must tolerate, such as ‘lick bush’ or ‘cheney is a dick’.

~ would the man who sang, “if you have political convictions, keep them to yourself”, appreciate having his post-mortem personage being co-opted by a political party and/or agenda? defend johnny cash [w] doesn’t think that would be the case. the angry red planet agrees, but only if the proposition applies equally to the democrats, greens, libertarians, anarchists, etc.

~ like the rest of the world, we at the angry red planet don’t talk about africa very often, but as the media is falling over themselves to be the first to say that everyone but them has been ignoring the crisis in the sudan, we have noticed a couple of absurd statements, both in the bbc:…

“One is the pressure from right-wing Christian groups in the US, who have taken up the cause of their fellow Christians in Sudan.

Their nagging – on the issues of slavery and the forcible imposition of Sharia law – helped get sanctions imposed on Sudan in 1997.”

‘nagging’. we know that the british media is expected to appeal to its audience by being testy and salacious, but to refer to warnings of slavery and violent religious laws as ‘nagging’ might be one of the reasons why many of their american cousins think they are full of shit.

…and the washington post:

“We should avoid the situations where we allow member states to hide behind the secretary general, use him as an alibi for their own inaction,” Annan told the Addis Tribune in Addis Ababa, the capital of neighboring Ethiopia.

in the midst of his whining – referring to himself in the third person – that people are calling him out for presiding over a second failure to act against ethnic cleansing, is kofi annan suggesting that ‘member states’ of the united nations should stop calling him lazy and start taking their own actions in sudan? is not this anathema to the purpose of the united nations? is not this type of unilateral action what he and everyone else – apart from the americans’ british cousins – bitched about when the united states decided to invade iraq?

~ according to be new england journal of medicine, one in six of servicemen/women returning from iraq are suffering from psychological damage. only 20% of these people are seeking help. between these guys walking the streets, housewives in fort bragg being killed, and the return of soldiers who are easily coerced into torturing prisoners, it might be safer to move to tikrit for the summer.

~ happy anniversary to our national motto: “bring ’em on!”

~ the amazing era of jrjr. has ended; he is already missed!

~ let’s try something fun: anatomy of a postcard

~ we usually do not link to ‘blog’ sites, and we are not prepared to post that the u.s. had nick berg killed to take some heat off of the abu ghraib scandal (a tactic similar to when they killed/’found’ laci peterson), so we will do something that meets these two options in the middle. daily kos [w].

~ for more lessons in simultaneously holding two opposing thoughts, check out the latest ‘woman’s day’ [w] magazine for instructions on losing weight while eating ice cream cookie sandwiches.

~ we have doubts that anyone is reading both the lines on this page and the new york post, but anyone who has crossed this threshold would have noticed the unrestrained glee with which they have ‘reported’ the killing in iraq of nick berg of philadelphia. the enthusiasm of a recent editorial that calls for the ‘total annihilation’ of the ‘thugs’ reminds us of a pornographic comic we once perused at the 1986 atlanta fantasy fair in which a police detective is depicted masturbating moments before shooting a serial killer in the head.

as the ny post has undoubtedly spent the last couple of weeks confused as to how to turn into flag waving headlines the stories of america’s abuse, rape, and murder of its prisoners, they seem to welcome this chance offered by the taped beheading of a an american to clean the slate – to put all that boring, mucky abuse scandal behind us. americans’ attention spans are limited, and the post understands that most people are incapable of maintaining thoughts on both the premeditated, systemic abuse by the american military upon thousands of iraqi detainees (70-90% of whom had been mistakenly arrested) and on insurgents who are so twisted as to think the spectacle killing of a free lance american is a legitimate method of defending their homeland, race, religion, or something.

the angry red planet knows that some people are able to hold two or more thoughts at one time, that the universe is too complex for tabloid format, that sometimes you have to eat limas for breakfast; those are for whom we are here.

~ we have no problems with the fact that disney is refusing allow its miramax stepchild to distribute michael moore’s [w] new film, ‘fahrenheit 911’, as it will relieve us, when we do see it, from paying any money into disney’s coffers. if the film was distributed by disney, we would have to find some avenue for viewing it for free; that road would likely lead down bittorrent [w] and arrive with a letter in our mailbox [w], and you can be sure as shit that we would never take that route.

~ due to excessive spam, we have recently blackholed any email not sent to a specific angryredplanet.org address. if you have been sending mail to an old address or something you made up, like ‘proust@angry…’, your mail has been getting trashed without anyone looking at it. if you have sent a missive and have been futilely awaiting a response, you can use our contact form, instant messaging, or an address that you have gotten directly from us within the past two weeks; otherwise, it will disappear unseen into /dev/null.