Wouldn't it be great if there was a massive counterrevolutionary movement in the US?

I had better explain that. Lately, I and several of my friends have formulated a new theory on culture and behavior that we are actually starting to call counterrevolutionism. We have been hashing it out over lunch not as a political school of thought, but as a cultural one, and it has great promise. It's probably been thought of a billion times before, but most likely not by students, and even more likely not by both conservative and liberal students together. Which makes it special, I suppose.

See, we read Thoreau. Civil Disobedience and all that rot. The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail. A Seperate Peace. In other words, crap. This part of the curriculum is actually called "Protest Lit" by the teachers themselves. Now, there are a lot of younger and older adults who may not understand that most students- public school students in my case- the soul of America- absolutely, positively hate obsessively revolutionary thought. My friends and I have dubbed it "the lifestyle of revolution." We hate the people who reject authority for the sake of rejection. It's a huge range of things to hate. We hate hippies, new or old. We hate transcendentalists. We hate the sort of people who write letters to thier congressmen about seat turtle preservation. We hate people who mutilate any remotely pierceable body part and get tattoos of peace signs or black roses or gothic lettering. We hate people who hate thier parents. We hate, as I said, the lifestyle of revolution.

Now, we don't hate revolution. We appreciate democratic revolutions, or revolutions with an intent towards government reform. We appreciate real revolutions. The American Revolution was good. The Weimar Republic was good, while it lasted. The kids in Tianenmen Square had thier heads in the right place. But we do not respect the 'Sexual Revolution.' We hate Transcendentalism. We do not think class warfare does anyone any good. When Mao Zedong starts the 'Cultural Revolution' becuase be believes that the people must be in constant revolution in order to maintain a Communist state, we see the very roots of revolutionary culture today. We see the culture of revolution- drugs, sex, disorder, anarchy- as a very different thing from a legitimate revolution of people for the sake of democracy.

We believe that once you have democracy that that is enough and that, at that point, the only way to succeed is though internal peace. Disagreements with government policy is well and good, but treating it like a war and marching to the capitol with illegitimate children in tow is not the way to go about solving things. The way to solve things? Write essays. Present facts. Thoreau did this, but in addition he did not pay his taxes and instead laid the foundation for generations upon generations to wage their own sort of war- on themselves.

We see the culture of revolution in all its forms- in disrespectful music, in its sit-ins, in its campus revolts- as fostering self-destructive lifestyles. Regardless of political inclination on our own part, we hate hippies and we blame them all on Thoreau.

And we want our teachers to stop teaching people like him as though they are harmless classics, which they aren’t. We’re not the first people and not the first students to think of this, but I think we very might well be the first students to blame it on Thoreau and Zedong. And we therefore believe such history and literature should be taught differently.

One of our friends call us reactionaries, partly because he just figured out what the word means and partly because he is uneasy with the whole idea. But regardlessof it apparent lack of originality, we want to do something about this. But we’re not sure what, as of yet.

But we will do something. Next year, maybe.

-The All-Powerful LEM

Wow- pro-Jacko and anti-war prostesters equating themselves? Not unbelieveable, but I certainly don't see the connection. Perhaps it has something to do with his extremely-alternate lifestyle.

I wouldn't know. I've got no opinion on the musician, except for the obvious fact that a man who cuts his nose off as a habit and who dangles toddlers out of hotel windows and forces to make them wear masks in public must have some problems that a professional should be addressing.

-The All-Powerful LEMadison

By all rights I should have followed up on that post about Star Wars. Let me just leave you with the fact that it completely redeemed the two monstrosities that Lucas created during what I call his "Crack Phase," but Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman both did nothing to improve the Star Wars name. In fact, had they been my young medieval children, I would have sold them to slavery in Araby and been done with it. But that was to be expected from portman: she is a Kerry supporter and was at the DNC.

I'm seeing it again tonight. And maybe tomorrow afternoon too. It shall be a weekend of Star Wars joy, and then a Memorial day in which I have to march in a parade while carrying a giant 35-pound solid metal glockenshpiel and playing it. That will not be entertaining. What's more, my band instructor did not give me a copy of "Semper Fidelis" until about two days ago, so I haven't learned it yet because it's the flue part and it's really, really hard. On the glockenshpiel, that is. I'm sure the lucky flutists who don't have to look at thier hands while marching can play it just fine, but no, I have to play it on a keyboard instrument that is missing E-flat and A-flat! And I play in B-flat the whole march, which means that I am eternally missing the E-flat and having to play midair, which is disconcerting, to say the least. And I'm bad at marching.

Well! Politics, politics! Hillary's ex-finance guy got aacquitted of that charge that he was ducking finance reform, which is, in my opinion, a fishy turn of events, considering the steps he took to hide it. And his reaction is just strange.


Well! Shall I buy him a set of china? A coffee-maker? A crib for the baby? What a strange, strange man. And the criminal element, a critical part in any Clinton undertaking:


And did you see this? Dear Lord, next they'll be outlawing big muscles and requiring background checks for bodybuilders with big fists! It's at times like these that I am especially grateful that there's the Atlantic Ocean between us and that nonsense.


Can anyone say 'police state'?

At least the world still has things like Star Wars in it, where people can chop and explode and mutilate each other without any fear of retribution, eh? Things like Star Wars which, I might add, was without any overt anti-Bushness but with considerable forced anti-warness. In two seperate discussions, the Sith outlook on combat and conflict is summarised by both "Only Sith deal in absolutes" and the Sith idea that good and evil are "a point of view." If Lucas can't decide whether his characters are moral (or immoral) absolutists or relativists simply for the sake of being more cocktail-party-friendly about war, he's lost my respect. But Star Wars and its universe are self-sufficient now. We don't need Lucas; we never have needed him. He's the tool of a greater cause, to put it poetically. The Star Wars cause? The modernization of science fiction. There is a space between Flash Gordon and cheap softcover C. S. Forester sci-fi ripoffs- a rather large and expansive space of recent history, yes, but Star Wars and Star Trek dominate it. In my opinion, Star Wars is the better of the two, being on the whole far, far more original.

I mean, who wouldn't want a laser sword?

-The All-Powerful LEM

Today Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith came out. I have ticketes for 7:15 tonight, and although that isnt exactly camping out at midnight its strill very awesome. I shall tell my grandchildren: "Boys and girls, I saw The Revenge of the Sith the very first day it came out! Ain't that a bit of living history?" and then I shall cackle long and loud and the kids will think Ive gon round the bend.

Which is exactly the opposite of what happens today. I mentioned to my dad yesterday, "Isnt it odd how I wasnt even born with the first Star Wars came out, and Im more of a fan than you are?" Its crazy stuff.

However, I am concerned about the political content that is rumored to afflict this fine title. If there does turn out to be a load of California Lucas crap in the movie (he did mention that he write this right after the Vietnam war) I shall come back here and rage that it is a desecration of all that we hold to be dear and true in Star Wars.

Desecration displeases me.

-The All-Powerful LEM

Vote on the bottom poll and take a look at the results.

If I were a rapper, I would now make some sort of deep-thraoted, ostentatious dedication to all you folks out there who get really anal about the Drudge Report. This is validation, is it not?

But we already knewHarry Reid was a petulant moron.


So, Harry Reid's idea of the best sort of war is not one that results in freedom and democracy in the heart of the Middle East, but one that you can run away from as easily as possible? Well, we already knew that too, come to think of it. Don't you often find yourself thinking that there's nothing new under the sun these days?
Well, here's something interesting to keep you on your toes:



Awww! The man apologized! How lovely! I find myself hating him less and less every second! I might just suddenly change my opinion of him as a slimy, sallow-faced coot to one of a shining, gracious, gallant dispenser of wisdom!

Actually, not.

-LEMadison

Today I saw Millions. You all should see it too. I know this makes me seem like a sucker for wierd artsy movies, but I'm not and it's not. The filmography is downright... different, at times, and definately more artsy than most of what's out there, and the story is a little strange, but it's still a great movie. The child actors are amazing, and there's a wealth of actors in there that have never been in a single movie before this one, or who have only been acting for a few years, or who have produced only a very few movies. There are some people who are obviously big names in the UK, but on the whole the actors are pretty much fresh. Especially to me, what with this being an British movie and me being American, of course.

No, I haven't been spending the whole time I promised I'd be posting watching movies. Well, not artsy movies, anyway. I watched a load of Star Wars. And played a load of Star Wars; Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, that is. That's a great, great, great game. It is also the first RPG I have ever actually, owned, and the first that I have played with suh a great wealth of plot possibilities. Needless to day, after winning the game on the Light Side, I found it necesarry to pursue the Dark Side of the firce, and after that I wondered what it owuld be like keeping as close to the neutral realm of possibilities as I could, which was very hard indeed.

And then I finally bought Attack of the Clones, watched it twice, was thoroughly disgusted by Lucas' shoddy craftsmanship, was reminded of how hard I laughed when I saw Yoda in the theater going medieval on Dooku, was informed that there is actually a cartoon series about the Clone Wars, pursued that, wasted my money on the soundtracks in 2-disc sets for episodes 4 and 6, put them all on my Dell, listened to them about ten times, watched all of the extra footage on my Attack of the Clones DVD, and then ended up realizing that I only had two days left of my April vacation, panicked, did my homework, and ended up here. Somehow.

So you could say I've been wasting my time watching movies. Good movies, though. Excepting AOTC. That was a terrible movie. And now, if you don't count the last two hours of today, I only have one day left of April vacation, and after that only aobut two weeks before my AP Chem exam, which is three hours long and considers passing with 50% highest marks. Which is really the crux of my long and needlessly involved excuse. After AP Chem I will really have loads of free time, seeing as the teacher has determined that we will spend the final quarter doing in-class projects and will be forbidden to work on them outside class hours, which means no homework. Which means I will only be studying four subjects, several of which have minimal homework in thier own rights.

Which technically means that I can say clever political things. Until May 19, of course, which is ten days after the AP exam; that is when Revenge of the Sith comes out! And I will definately be seeing it that day. Maybe I'll even design a special site layout for that day! With cool things in it! Oh, boy, that would be cool, wouldn't it? Huh. I see good times coming up.

See, even though I wasn't born anywhere near the 70s when all of these wonderful movies were coming out, I was quite in the right age range when Lucas did that rerelease in the theaters in the 90s and all those action figures and playsets and books and other awesome things came out. I had this little tote box full of action figures, and my friend had a playset of the Slave II that we packed full of carbonite Hans and Jedi Version Lukes and C-3P0 Break-Into-Pieces-Like-On-Bespin-Version, Luke Dagobah Version with a little backpack for carrying a Yoda figure, and all sorts of wonderful things like that. I don't have any of them anymore. I threw them out when told we couldn't possibly keep them around anymore for purely space reasons. So, yes, that validates my obsession.

I hope.

-The All-Powerful LEM

If you’ll permit me: no duh.

I could have told them the generalities myself, but it’s absolutely wonderful to see people actually gathering the real numbers on the issue.


But no one addressed the issue I find most important:



Oh well. That would be incredibly hard to reliably tabulate, wouldn’t it? But, from my experience with such parodies of intellectual excellence as Leslie Brisman, I’d be willing to make a few educated guesses.

-The All-Powerful LEM

How many times have I had to apologize for being away? Well, this time I will blame it on Jedi Knight 3 and The Battle For Middle Earth, a game which is, if not very strategical, very entertaining. And addicting. And then there’s been school. So I really have no real excuse.

And what really scared me is that my hit count went up by half after I stopped posting. Scary, huh?

Yes. I was also put off by IMAO going group, which completely ruined it, in my opinion. I, frankly, hate Harvey. I go to lengths not to read him. I’m sorry. He’s obviously a great guy and all that, but the stuff he writes has about the same effect on me that my church’s current pastor does: it ruins my whole day. But yeah, Frank’s going to get married, so maybe I can forgive him or something. But IMAO is still just not the same. But it’s really shallow and stupid of me to say that IMAO ruined my posting schedule, so I’ll stop just short of saying that.

So I made a lovely post at what was basically midnight last night, while listening to the music from every single scene of Star Wars: A New Hope from a lovely two-disc set I got yesterday that is so awesomely comprehensive in its coverage that I nearly blew some gaskets out of the John Williams awesomeness of it all. It is fantastic. I love everything Star Wars (except for Lucas’ slaughtering of episodes One and Two and the ‘other side’ of the franchise, as I like to call it- the side that involves Cartoon Network shorts and cheesy paperback books), and this music is no exception. I plan to buy the soundtracks for episodes five and six as well, but they’re somewhat expensive, so I’ll have to wait a bit on that.

Back to the lovely post, though! All of the Schaivo stuff made me realize that I needed so say something about it, so I did. I might say some more stuff about more interesting or irritating things. Probably while listening to that soundtrack.

-The All-Powerful LEM

My take on the Schaivo issue:

1) The lady is brain damaged, not ill. Therefore, she's basically like someone with a debilitating mental illness.

2) People with demilitating mental illnesses are kept alive and protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

3) Michael Schaivo has a vested interest in seeing his wife dead.

4) There is some evidence that he has already attempted to murder her.

5) There is other evidence that he as attempted to stop her rehabilitation process.

6) There is little evidence that she would have wanted to die, and her religion opposes that option, but since she's Catholic people discount that becuase some people are just plain anti-Catholic.

Now, I don't presume to know much about the case, but what I do see behind all of this is a large can of worms that some people are intent on opening for thier own benefit. The right-to-die can of worms, for instance. The pro-abortion can of worms. All sorts of wierd death-related worms that are, incidentally (actually, I don't think it's incidentally, but we'll come to that later), all associated with liberal agendas that have transformed this whole issue into a political debate. Now it's pro-lifers and religious interests versus the seething mass of liberal death interests. That shouldn't make it difficult to see which side has morality (and God, if you want to think of it that way) on its side.

Liberals have a habit of supporting the killing of innocents. I cite abortion, euthanasia, pro-communism preferences, pro-Castro leanings, anti-military-action-against-dictators leanings, and any other example you can think of that I can't list here. It's a sort of pattern of thiers; they continuously and reliably support issues that result in or lend themselves to the act of killing innocent people. It's a thing that they do. Therefore, when a situation involving a struggle over the constitutional treatment of life arises, it is instantly turned into a political battleground. Even when the issue begins to transcend politics (I know plenty of liberals who think that morality trumps here and Terri ought not to be starved to death) the hard-core elements of the liberal party will continue to blindly assert that that the situation is political, that conservatives are using it for thier won gain (a faint attempt to make it seem like they're not in the wrong all by themselves), and that whoever has a chance to die or to be killed ought to give up the ghost, and quickly. The situation is obviously a case of rouge courts flexing thier muscles, and that is political, but what really gets me is how the berserkers of the liberal cause, on television and in the New York Times, want this lady to die so badly.

It's obvious to infer that I oppose what Michael Schaivo is doing to his wife, on both religious and secularly moral grounds. Religiously, as a fellow-Catholic, I think people being killed or choosing to die is foolish and that counseling, not the needle, would be better-advised. However, in this case there is no evidence that she would have even wanted to die, and plenty evidence that Mr. Schaivo (the evidence being his other 'wife' and two kids) would have a quite uncaring and ruthless want for her to die. What's more, as I heard a radio fill-in for Michael Savage reason on Friday night, Michael Schaivo is an adulterer and a bigamist. As well as someone who has probably attempted various forms of murder and/or sabotage. (I cite the mysteriously broken bones and the issue about those nurses who found the insulin bottle and needle and deduced that he was probably trying to giv eher a hypoglycemic attack, a mthod of murder which I, as a diabetic who knows exactly how horrible hypoglycemia is, find particularly disgusting.) This guy should be investigated for criminal activity, not given the paparazzi treatment.

But the 'culture of death' we hear so much about has inexorably raised its ugly head. That and the issue of governmental checks and balances, rouge courts, right-to-life, quality-of-life, the rights of disabled persons, and much more. If one perfectly healthy woman is killed because of apparent 'quality-of-life' concerns, how many more will be targeted as unfit to live? Will we start a mass killing of all people unable to feed themselves? Will we begin to determine which people are 'fit' to live? As a diabteic, what if I fall victim to the sort of heart attack that diabetics are always dying of and find myself in a similar situation? Or what if I get Alzheimer's, lose the ability to feed myself, and find that my kids don't really care if I live or die and pull the plug on me? What if a horse kicks me in the head and someone decides that I might have mentioned to them once a long time ago that I didn't want to live in a drooling, senseless state and decide to forego the therapy and just kill me instead? Needless to say, I wouldn't want any of that. Neither would most self-respecting, mentally-sound American citizens. It would be terrible if this case sets that sort of precedent- which it will, before long, if the media attention doesn't let up.

This is a simple case of some guy who wants his wife to be dead so he can marry some other lady. That's it. And his senseless, endless tramp along to road to legalizing her murder has led to a constitutional crisis, of sorts. Sadly, I have to admit that it would have been worse if Jeb Bush had ordered a commando raid of the place, because then we would have had to hack out the whole issue of governemnt intruding into the Justice Department's self-proclaimed stomping ground, and then heads would have rolled without end and the next thing you know the courts would be legislating thier way to hell and back. The case is still horrible and endless and just plain disturbing, but there is the whole phantom legal case behind it that makes my feet shake in my boots.

To put it in the manner of those old drawling cartoon westerns, there oughta be a law about it.


-The All-Powerful LEM