There she is, Miss California! You Californians must be so proud...

Pageant Official Quits Over Miss. Calif. Decision


You know I just don't get it. How can anyone take this Carrie Prejean chick seriously? She is clearly all about herself. She talks like she has a direct line to God, but yet she apparently thought her god's handiwork wasn't perfect enough, so she gets a boob job to increase her chances to win a goddamn beauty pageant. And I guess that dude doesn't mind one of his followers flashing some tit to advance their career.

Now, you'll never hear me saying women shouldn't get fake boobs, or that they shouldn't do nudity or even porn. I may have an opinion about that, but it's not my place to tell someone what to do with their own body. But for that same person to turn around and tell someone else that their choice is a no-can-do, uh-uh...no, no, no. Sorry, when you've had major surgery (and it is major surgery) and used your sexuality to win a fucking beauty contest, you may not have forfeited your right to speak out, but you have lost your right to expect to be taken seriously. And when you speak out about any subject that has to do with restricting someones personal choice, you will not be taken seriously by others, or at least by me. And you will also have your motives questioned.

It's funny, the Fox News crowd, most of which are Christians, will eat her up. And yet she has made a mockery of Christianity, using it like she used her fake tits to advance her career. I don't believe someone like her holds anything as a sincere belief, except that it's all about her.

I just love the following quotes she gave in interviews after all of this:

- "I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, "Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people . . . you need to witness to them and you need to show that you're not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA."

- "This happened for a reason. By having to answer that question in front of a national audience, God was testing my character and faith. I'm glad I stayed true to myself."

Say what?? Right, she didn't compromise to win the Miss USA title; she stayed true to herself. Oh brother! I guess she forgot about the boob shots that happened because it was a "windy day". And she must have forgotten about the new fake tits that she had gotten only weeks before.

I can't believe she said her god talks to her and gave her this as a test. Really? What test was he putting you through when he told you to get bigger tits and when he told you to flash some skin for a photographer? If he told you one, he told you the other. Why can't people just admit their biases instead of passing it off on their god or religion? Thankfully for them, their god is only make believe. If I thought for a second that there was a god, I would have more respect for that god than to blame it for my own bigotry.

Please. There was no test, this media whore new exactly what she was doing when she was getting her breast enhancement and flashing her boobs for the camera. Then when she was asked that question by that idiot blogger, it fell right into her lap. Her clunky rambling answer was one thing; I can forgive that because people can get nervous. And if she honestly felt that way, then so be it. But to then use that moment on stage as a launching pad for her career and act like she is a paragon of virtue because "I stayed true to myself" blah, blah, blah, is just too much. Reading the above quotes, what else can we assume except that she is saying she wouldn't compromise herself or her religion to win? That my friends, is BULLSHIT. Of course she compromised. But now that she has become the darling of the Christian right, she's making out like she is a hero for sticking to her bigoted beliefs--when she was in fact just answering a question that she probably didn't give a rip about.

And make no mistake, she is one of two things. She's either a bigot, or a lair that's trying to advance her career. She's not a bigot for answering that question on stage in my estimation, but because of the shit she said afterward. She's a bigot because she, like most if not all people who are against gay marriage, cannot give one example of how gay marriage will prevent heterosexual people from getting married or how it will have a deleterious affect on them--aside from hurting their feelings. They're just bigoted toward gays. And even that wouldn't be so bad if they would just admit it, instead of this bullshit about "protecting the sanctity of marriage" and such. Right, the most ignorant people in the world can get married multiple times and have all sorts of bastard children, and you don't hear one goddamn peep from the nutters. But gay marriage, that must be stopped! Please.

Or, she's a liar that is out for herself like so many other people in this world. She has already proven that she has no problem lying when she conveniently forgot about the titty shots that she was supposed to tell the pageant officials about--not that I care about them either. Does anyone believe that she wouldn't have been shown the door for lying if Donald Trump wasn't in charge? Anyone?? And wasn't it nice of her to cancel on Larry King at the last minute? Think she'll be canceling on Fox News? Hm...the Magic 8 Ball says no, she won't.

And you know what's funny? By exposing the hypocrisy of this asshole, people like me are actually standing up for the nutters that probably think she's the greatest thing since Jesus, and can't wait for her inevitable career at Fox News to begin. It would be no trouble for me to see the faithful get their asses handed to them again like so they have been by so many other frauds in the last 20 years or so when their hypocritical, less then holy predilections are exposed. But too bad, I guess. Hypocrisy is one of my least liked qualities in humans, and I won't shut up about it when I see it. It's not that I don't expect it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Conduct your life as you please, just don't tell me to do ( or to not do) something when you yourself aren't willing to do the same. Gay marriage isn't natural, right Carrie? It's not approved by your god. But fake tits and fake who knows what else, he's down with that, is that it? How about you just shut the fuck up, you vacuous and ignorant nincompoop?

Anyway, if she turns out to be just another bigot, oh well, the world is full of them. She's already joined the paranoid lunatics at the National Organization for Marriage, so maybe she is. But all signs point to her being an opportunistic media whore that doesn't give a shit about whom she hurts. Whether it's the nutters that she will no doubt ride to get her career going, or the gay people that she will harm for the same reason, she will be hurting some people along the way. It's bad enough that there are ignorant people like her in this world, but it's even worse when someone like her uses that bigotry to advance their career and probably couldn't care less about whom they harm. "No offense" she says. BULL F-U-C-K-I-N-G SHIT.

I hope I'm wrong and she's just a young lady that is misguided and lost, and doesn't know what she believes yet. And no doubt she will get used by the nutters as much as she uses them. But be that as it may, that still doesn't excuse her. And goddammit, wrong is wrong, and I do NOT have tolerance for intolerance, and I have even less tolerance for intolerant people that are hypocrites.

And you know what? This brings up another point--stupid people trying to sound smart. It's embarrassing to watch, and it hurts their cause. So when someone is out of your league, don't hurl insults and invectives, just bow out gracefully. It's not a sin to lose an argument.

A "windy day"... please, just go away.

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So, she was finally shown the door by pageant officials. A little late, but they really had no choice if they wanted to have any control over future contestants. So now we will have to see what this dingus comes up with next. let's see if she was just the flavor of the month, or if she hooks up with Fox or some other right wing outfit. But, more pressing issues are revealing themselves, and she will be soon forgotten by me, and hopefully all of us. But there will always be people like her to take her place. I hope she comes to her senses.

Copyright ©2009 Rum Tickled Humanist

Watchmen: Just another movie?

"You know, mankind has been trying to kill each other off since the dawn of time, and now that we have the means...we can finally do it." ~ Edward Blake/The Comedian

Roger Ebert review of Watchmen

It's been a few weeks now since I last saw Watchmen, and I think I'm ready to have a go at a few thoughts. Please forgive me if I ramble or drift into sophistry. First of all let me say that this movie is not for the kids. It's violent, contains sex scenes, nudity, and most of all is simply brutal about it's subject matter--which is us. And secondly, don't read this if you haven't seen it because I won't be keeping secrets and spoilers will abound.

I know that some people find this movie depressing and cynical, but I only saw it as realistic. I won't delve into the characters and make this a standard movie review, but rather a commentary on what the movie was saying. I've now seen this film three times with the last viewing being a few weeks ago. This blog post has been several weeks in the making so please forgive the tardiness of this post. But since this is more about the subject matter than a review to convince you to go see the movie, I feel it's relevance is timeless. But still, you should go see this film. So let's get into it...

Of all the crime fighters in the film only Dr. Manhattan could be said to be superhuman, and the rest were just highly skilled human beings that chose to fight crime; only these crime fighters were less than perfect and had no trouble dispatching the bad guys with extreme prejudice. It would be hard to nail down just exactly what the director was trying to convey to the audience. But I like that a movie leaves me with something to ponder. While I certainly enjoy more straightforward films, I am rarely left with something to think about after I've left the theatre. Mind you the past year or so has been a banner year in that regard, and for that I am thankful.

Having said that, I will attempt to sum up what I think are the main points of the movie, or at least what I took from it. First, we better pull our collective heads out of our asses and we better do it quick, before our only option to avoid nuclear destruction is to fight another devastating war which may be just as bad. Second, no one is truly good. We are all full of contradictions and both good and evil exist in us. And third, there may not be hope for us or a painless solution to our penchant for violence and our human condition. In this film the one superhero that is considered the smartest takes vigilantism to an extreme by developing a device that mirrors the powers of Dr. Manhattan and then uses that power to level several cities, thereby scaring the two countries that are about to go nuclear into living in peace by the end of the film.

Yes, it is a brutal way to prevent what would have been a devastating nuclear war. But is this our future? Of course this is a fantasy, and no one knows the future with certainty. Maybe in that reality, or even in ours, the result would have been a conventional war--but that is not the point. We will kill each other. Whether we annihilate each other with nuclear weapons or with conventional weapons, war seems to be unavoidable for us. The way I saw it this movie was a commentary on humanity. There was going to be a war because that's what we do. To relieve the pressure when it becomes too great for whatever reason, we kill each other. Whether it's done through a limited nuclear engagement that levels several cities, a full engagement, or a conventional war, it was going to happen.

This movie will be seen by some as saying it's okay to kill millions to prevent a war--that it's trying to justified the slaughter of people for a greater good. They will say the movie is saying murder is justified and that we should accept the inevitable. But that's not it at all. The movie is making the point that this is what happens when you appeal to war. One way or another people are going to die. The solution for Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, was to fool humanity by making the nations of the world frightened of an outside power. But they weren't less inclined to kill each other through an organic process or evolving of the human mind, they were simply turned into scared children of a god. But even that god, Dr. Manhattan, knew that while you can trick mankind you cannot change the nature of mankind. And he knew that in it's current state, this was the only hope for mankind. A false hope to be sure, but the only one that would be effective. It wasn't a matter of saying that murdering millions was the solution, this movie is saying that murdering millions all too often is our solution. Who can deny this as we look back at the wars throughout history? Mankind needs no assistance from a movie to reveal the evil that we are capable of.

There are parallels in our world today. So many people believe in a higher power and only do good, or at least don't hurt others, because they fear their god. They are no less capable of killing than the unbeliever is, and will never evolve to a higher plane of existence as long as they only do good out of fear or for a reward. This film makes the point that in a world that has devolved into this state, the only solution is an unimaginably horrible one that would only be a solution in such a violent and hopeless world. In this world the one person that would show the world the true nature of humanity and the lie that their new "utopia" is built on, must die for his beliefs. In this world and in ours, humanity is not yet ready to rise above petty differences and embrace each other, so the only means to obtain peace is violence. In this world telling the truth is no longer a virtue and is instead an inconvenience when it doesn't serve the new utopia, and is a commodity when it does. Look at how we vilify people that threaten our comfy bubble by telling us the stark truth. For us the martyr isn't a crime fighter, it's truth itself.

One way or the other, there was going to be violence, and only the fear of annihilation will make us what we should be. But because it took that fear to change them (and us), we haven't achieved a lasting peace. We will bring ourselves to the brink again; it's only a matter of time until we do. And I think the message that the movie leaves us with as the journal of Rorschach (the murdered martyr who would reveal all) is shown in the office of a journalist, is will we be able to maintain this false peace for real when we once again have the freedom to entertain our darkest thoughts without fear of annihilation from above?

To me this movie spoke to me as an allegory of religion in it's most distilled form. So many of us need religion and the threat of eternal damnation, or at least the promise of eternal bliss, to do what we should do without reservation if we would refuse to be controlled by our lowly origins and instead strove for a higher existence. And saddest of all, just like the plan of Ozymandias, it doesn't make us better at all; it only hides our true nature and in fact often makes us more effective agents of hate and will continue to retard our growth as human beings.

I think Rorschach had it right-- tell the truth, consequences be damned. If we are to survive and prosper then it will be through trial by fire; but at least it will be because we will have learned the futility of hate and war. Maybe then we will appeal to our higher natures. And if we fail then it was our future anyway, because no false peace can last and only delays the inevitable. Let's not kid ourselves, how long would we last without laws and the fear of punishment? I'll let you be the judge about whether or not this false peace, this manufactured sense of security, is worth maintaining or offers any hope for our future.

Are we just putting off the inevitable, or are we buying ourselves precious time at the cost of our present sufferings?

Copyright ©2009 Rum Tickled Humanist