The Problem with Twilight

Apparently the MTV movie awards are on. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never watched them, but it seems like a great deal of hype this year will be surrounding the film, Twilight, based on Stephanie Meyer’s book series.

I saw Twilight and I did not like it. That’s all I’m going to say about that. What I really want to talk about is why it’s bad that Twilight is so popular in the first place.

It all began with Anne Rice: the woman had a marvelous idea to portray vampires as something other than mindless, inherently evil, bloodsucking monsters. Louie, Lestat, Armand, and the rest of the gang are all well read, well dressed, well mannered, open-minded sexually, and care a great deal about literature, fine arts, and the plight of ordinary human beings.

That’s all fine and good. The problem is that every single vampire character that Rice created followed that exact same formula, and nearly every single vampire author has followed suit.

Edward from the Twilight series is a handsome, kind, gentle spirit who falls madly in love with a human girl named Bella.

I want to suck your... wait no I just suck.

Bill from True Blood is a handsome, thoughtful, southern gentleman who falls head over heels for Anna Paquin. I can’t fault him too much there, but you get my point. It’s the same old pattern that the publishing industry is shoving down our throats because since Ms. Rice broke the mold and became a hit nobody has dared to take another angle at the genre.

The pattern is very popular, in fact Meyer and Charlaine Harris (Dead Before Dark) share two of the top ten spots on the New York Times bestseller fiction list this week.

The problem with this pattern is that it caters to only one portion of the very large market of fans who love vampire fiction: teenage and twenty-something girls. My guess is that for every coo-coo for Edward’s frosty nuts fan out there, there’s at least one and a half fans who could care less about far-fetched romantic fantasies between the undead and emotionally vulnerable girls.

Somebody needs to write something for those people. Somebody needs to reach fans of Near Dark, The Lost Boys, and Bram Stoker. Somebody needs to create a creature who wants only one thing from an innocent suburban white girl, and it isn’t her hand in marriage.

Fear not, my morbid vampire fiction fans. Help is on the way.

I am working on a new novel (my 2nd) that I’m calling a vampire noir. My guess is that I’m not alone out there, there are other writers and filmmakers who are sick to tears of this current trend of bloody fiction; so sick in fact, that they’ll actually do something about it.

It’s time to drop the phony accents, suave demeanors, and selfless hearts from our vampire villains and get back to something gritty. Who’s with me???

Really Russia? 4 Reals?

I’m going to file this one under irresponsible journalism rather than politics so that I can say I’m staying above the fray.

Pravda, the premiere Russian newspaper, according to the douchebags who spend their waking hours updating Wikipedia, just released an article that claimed American capitalism has died without a whimper.

Furthermore, it states that Russians would have fought much harder for their soulless, capitalist machine than Americans:

“…But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.”

Right. The Russians would never just roll over and forfeit democracy for the sake of the international reputation of their so-called country. They would never allow a dictator to control elections at all local levels, and declare himself to be President for life-de-facto by playing with puppets in red ties.

This is where I get off the boat with this anti-Americanism. I am from America. I’ve lived in America my whole life, so I can bad-mouth America as much as I damn well please. But when the French, who started the Vietnam War, or the Russians, who gave up democracy 15 minutes after they discovered it, start lecturing us about how to run our country, that’s where I call foul.

Foul.

Pravda continues in its cultural criticism:

“First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.”

Right. And alcoholism blinds the Russian journalist. I know at least one thing that’s better here: Life expectancy! As in, because 50% of our population isn’t alcoholic, addicted to tobacco,  in poverty, or a combination of all three, we have a much better chance to enjoy our cheeseburgers well into old age, and by old age, I mean over forty years old.

When you start taking care of your minority populations (France) and stop pretending to be anything more than a totalitarian dystopia (Russia) then maybe you can come down to our doorstep and tell us how to run our fucked up, egomaniacal, self-centered, self-gratifying, violent, depraved, hypocritical country. Until then, take that freshly printed newspaper, turn it sideways, and ram it right up your candy ass.

Find an Audience

There’s an old Russian or European or Aramaic saying that goes “work is a blessing.”

It applies to the creative industry moreso than any other, perhaps. When an artist is working, whether for pay or not, it provides an outlet: therapy, muse, and mental gymnastics all in one. In the spirit of keeping myself working, I decided to start a writer’s group.

A lot of my friends have liberal arts or fine arts degrees that are very unlikely to yield a steady paycheck, especially nowadays. Too many of us have become discouraged by the job market. Several that I know have given up creating entirely. That’s just unacceptable as far as I’m concerned. We paid tuition, we got degrees, we put a ton of time and money and hard work into our art: if we’re not going to get rich off of it, we might as fucking well continue to make it, right?

So I got together a group of friends that I thought would be down for a regular group, if for no other reason to have motivation to write something every week. As fas as I’m concerned, it’s been an enormous benefit. My best teacher at school said that all art is performance art.

This is the big thing for art: it has to be about more than yourself. There are many painters, musicians, writers, and so on who never want to share their work with the wider world, and that’s a big creative buzzkill. Lately since I know that I have at least a small audience for my work, I have been far more productive and energized about writing in general.

I might never get a book published, I might never find a literary agent, I probably will never see the light of a bestseller’s list. But I’m going to keep creating. I’m going to keep searching for them. By that fuckit mindset, a person might as well never play a sport or exercise just because they’re never going to make the major leagues. Ludicrous. Without the work, we have nothing.

Here’s a hint if you find yourself blocked up or uninspired or wishing you’d gone to school for business administration:

Find a group of people to share your art with.

If the prospect of sharing your art with an audience doesn’t excite you enough to create something, then you probably really should have tried something different in the first place.

Nuggets vs. Magic Finals

I like Lebron James. I really do. He’s the closest thing to a role-model athlete that I can think of, he’s charismatic, athletic, and seems like a fun guy in general to be around. I probably like Lebron James a little too much. I’ve had to write-off my admiration for him as a harmless man-crush more times than I am willing to divulge here. However, right now, I’m hoping that he’ll lose.

The entire sports media apparatus has been abuzz for the last several months about a Lebron vs. Kobe matchup in the NBA Finals. What’s that? Oh! They also play for two different teams: the Cavs and the Lakers, respectively.

I myself have been a part of this hype; I predicted at the beginning of the playoffs that Lebron and Kobe would meet in the Finals, and as a fan of the game, I’ve even hoped for it.

But somewhere in the middle of these knock-down, drag-out, nile-biting 2009 playoffs I decided that if the Cavs and the Lakers meet in the NBA Finals, I’ll be really disappointed deep down.

Here’s why: Lebron and Kobe EXPECT to be in the Finals. Not want. Not hope. Not strive for. They expect to meet at the apex, and their teams have played with the same attitude.

Throughout the regular season, the Cavs and the Lakers dominated their respective conferences. They blew the competition away. They set records. They defeated any and all comers. But they have never actually played like it really mattered, and now it’s coming back to haunt them.

The Lakers tried to dismiss the lowly, unlucky Rockets in the second round and nearly got beaten by a team missing its two best players.

The Cavs had such an easy road to the 3rd round that now they don’t seem to remember how to play against a real team.

Both teams have benefitted from the absurdity of NBA officiating. Meaning, Lebron James and Kobe Bryant can do almost no wrong. Both players create contact on the offensive end every possession, but nearly every time, the other players get whistled for a foul. They do this not because they’re malicious. They do it because they know they’ll get the benefit of the doubt. Because NBA referees are spineless sacks of shit, they give superstars the advantage any time a call is even close to questionable.

In the Denver Nuggets, the Lakers have run into another opponent who isn’t just about to lay down for them, and the Cavs at this point are lucky that they haven’t been swept by an Orlando Magic team that has outplayed, out-hustled, and out-coached them at every step of the way.

Lebron still has a chance to get his team back to the top of the mountain, but he’ll have to win 3 in a row against a team that is thoroughly unimpressed with his endorsements, his name recognition status, and his pre-ordained rise to the top of the league. In short, it ain’t gonna happen.

Kobe and the Lakers still have a solid shot to beat the Nuggets, despite playing lackluster defense throughout the entire series and the playoffs.

The NBA’s marketing dream matchup isn’t going to happen unless David Stern directly interferes and makes a new rule stating that any player making contact with Lebron James will automatically be ejected from the game, and that really wouldn’t surprise me too much.

A Lakers/Magic matchup on the big stage could provide some good drama, if not the homoerotic pageantry that a Lebron/Kobe matchup would bring.

But what would really make my day is to see the Denver Nuggets and Orlando Magic meet in the NBA Finals. What would really excite me is to see two teams make it to the big stage without marquee big named players, without gold medals and Nike deals and the entire media establishment rooting them on. What I really want is to see two solid teams playing basketball for the right to be called the best in the world, and that is far more exciting to me than the silly hype that will surround everyone’s favorite rivalry.

Let’s go Nuggets!

The Top 5 Ways to Write a Top 5 Post

Hello! My name is Tim Weaver and I am a web writer with over ten years of experience in the field, and by in the field, I mean sitting on my butt in front of the computer.

Web writing is an exciting new career frontier for creative types who lack the ability to lift fifty pounds or more, and it’s growing all the time. There are sectors of growth in web writing that offer unlimited opportunities for young people just entering the workforce, such as:

- Spam

- Blogging

and Reviewing indy shows for three dollars an hour.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking that you don’t know enough about web writing to really make a career of it. But you’re dead wrong. Using my not patented, tried and true techniques, you can become an expert web writer in just five easy minutes. It’s as simple as 1-2-3-4-5. What do I mean? I’ll show you!

All good web content follows the exact same formula, and it applies to every possible niche content that you can imagine. If you can memorize this pattern and apply it to your web space, you’ll be writing exactly like everybody else on the internet.

Rule number 1: State the Obvious

Say that you’re writing a piece about a major league pitcher on a seven game win streak. While you might be tempted to jump right into a rousing description of his most recent victory, or an in-depth look at his stats, before you do anything else, state the obvious. Such as: Bats Mcgee is having a pretty good year.

With that one line, your readers will know that you know how to state the obvious, and that you won’t attempt to challenge their intelligence in any way, which is the cardinal sin in web writing. Where you take the article after that is your choice.

Rule number 2: Use Bold A Lot

In order to draw attention to your main points and paragraphs, you should use the BOLD text feature as often as possible. Because nobody on the internet has an attention span longer than thirty seconds, you must work diligently to keep their attention through boldness. Web readers don’t want to read every word or every sentence. To hold their attention, you must remember to use the BOLD at least in every other paragaph, that way, they think something important might be coming up.

Rule number 3: Only use four sentences per paragraph.

I really cannot emphasize this enough. No matter what your topic, it is absolutely vital to use no more than four sentences in any one paragraph. Asking your readers to read five sentences is torture, and we all know how I feel about torture.

Rule number 4: Use the “Top 5″ label whenever possible

97 percent of web articles use the formula “The Top 5 Reasons for _______, or Five Ways to Increase Your _____________ . Why does everybody use this same formula? Because it works. Don’t deviate from the program.

Rule number 5: Repeat yourself ad nauseam

The one problem with the Top 5 formula is that the large majority of web articles have to do with topics that don’t require more than two separate thoughts. In order to complete the formula, you’ll need to repeat yourself as often as possible. When you find yourself struggling to meet your 500 word count deadline, try re-stating the obvious, summarize your opinions, and always write a witty conclusion that wraps up your two ideas in a very nice, neat little package.

Remember above all that writing for the web isn’t easy. It’s VERY easy. It’s so easy in fact that any primate with an internet connection can do it. But you have to play by the rules, and follow the formula.

If you do that, then in no time at all you’ll be writing spectacular web content and you can make dozens and dozens of dollars every single month. Good luck!

How I Got a Job During the Recession

I just got a job for a marketing firm downtown, even though we’re in the middle of a recession and only 20% of the graduating class of 2009 will be employed right out of school. Here’s how I did it:

1. Persistence: I applied for the Marketing Coordinator position online at Craigslist, but I didn’t stop there. I followed up with another e-mail ten minutes after I sent my original application, just to make sure they received it, and my resume was attached properly. Then I followed up with a phone call every day to inquire about the status of the job opening.This is key in your job search, young graduates: you must be willing to set your self apart from the rest of the field through persistence.

When the secretary insisted that I stop calling because she was too busy handling other applicants, I decided to go the extra mile. I offered to eliminate the other applicants by strangulation in order to free up her time. Even though she said it wasn’t necessary I knew that I was showing my dedication to the company. Right off the bat, I’m saving them precious resources: this is absolutely vital- you must give value before expecting something in return.

2. Obsequiousness: The HR manager for the firm did not have his contact information listed in the job ad. But I didn’t let that stop me. I knew that making a good impression on the HR manager was a huge key to getting my foot in the door. So, after the office closed one evening, I broke in and went searching through the company records. Because of this stroke of ingenuity, I was able to find out not only where the HR manager lived, but found directions from the office in the same file. What a find!

The next step was very important. Job applicants, listen closely. If you want to stand out in this job market, you must be willing to do ANYTHING. What I did was follow the HR manager around on a perpetual basis even during evening hours and on the weekends. I offered to walk his dog, babysit his kids, take his suit to the dry cleaner, and perform oral sex on him while he was driving to and from work every day.

How many other job candidates do you think went that far to impress Human Resources? My bet is not very many at all.

3. Offer to Work for Free: Too many graduates are expecting to have paid positions right out of school. It’s a good idea to apply to as many unpaid internships as possible, but it’s only a start. My generation has been spoiled for too long if you ask me. We have been brought up with the expectation that in America anyone who works hard can get a job, and a PAYING one at that! No more. In this economy, you can’t be picky about your salary, or about having a salary at all.

If you’re having trouble getting past the first interview, offer to do the job for free. Even though you won’t make rent and will have to sustain on Ramen, you’ll still be gaining valuable experience and networking skills that will help you for the rest of your career. If you work hard enough eventually somebody will offer to buy you lunch. The point is that in this economy you simply cannot afford to get all hung up on maintaining your human dignity and earning monetary compensation.

Work is its own reward.

By following my advice, you too can get an exciting new position in any field of your choice. It’s time to get out in the real world. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and go out there and make me proud!

Book Review: Cat’s Cradle

The end of the world is a popular subject these days in film and literature.

Just take a moment and think about all of the apocalyptic-themed movies that have come out over the last few decades: Resident Evil: Apocalypse, 2012, Terminator, End of Days, Deep Impact, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days, Children of Men, Armageddon, Constantine, 1984, and so on and so forth.

Apocalyptic literature is nothing new, though. In the 1800’s, Mary Shelley and Richard Jefferies both made works about the end to come, or having already come. Long before that, the apostle John wrote the definitive apocalyptic book: Revelations.

The point is that we seem to always be worried that our lives on this little, fragile planet might one day come to an end. Recently it seems like that particular fear has become much more prevalent. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we’ve screwed up our environment so badly that there will probably be no marine life on Earth in another 70 years or so. Perhaps it’s living in an age when we have more than enough nuclear weapons to kill all life on this planet fifteen times over. In any case, the anxiety isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and artists are cashing in on this phenomenon.

I myself wrote an apocalyptic thriller recently. Right now I’m pitching to agents and you will certainly hear a lot more about it if I can get a book deal.

The most recent end of the world book that I read is Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, which was written in 1963.

Mr. Vonnegut was witness to some things during his lifetime that painted his worldview a pretty stark black, if not a very deep charcoal gray. During World War II he was captured by the Germans and put into a prison camp underground in Dresden. A few months later the U.S. carpet-bombed the city, killing over a hundred thousand innocent civilians in the process. Vonnegut’s captors forced him to help clean up the bodies afterwards. It’s a story that is told many times over in his work, most notably in the brilliant Slaughterhouse Five.

I can’t blame him for having a negative view of the future, and humanity in general, after this episode.

Cat’s Cradle follows a writer who is researching a book on Dr. Felix Hoenikker: the father of the atomic bomb, and the creator of Ice Nine; a chemical compound that has the potential to freeze every drop of moisture on Earth.

The writer follows the deceased Doctor’s quirky children around the country and eventually to a tiny island nation called San Lorenzo. The citizens of San Lorenzo are stuck in a perpetual staged performance between the government and a religious figure named Bokonon. Bokononism is an outlawed religion that serves as the islanders only solace from their poverty and generally awful lives. The President of San Lorenzo has vowed to hunt down Bokonon, and execute any members of the religion. It turns out that he himself is a Bokononist, in the end, and that the search for the leader is merely a ruse to keep the islanders occupied.

Vonnegut has a very deep-seeded antagonism with religion and it is so heavy in Cat’s Cradle that the pages are soaked through with it. He sees organized faith as the greatest lie out of all the many lies that human beings tell themselves on a daily basis.

But he is not a nihilist. Throughout the story there are a number of incidents that would provoke apathy and despair in the characters, but the narrator always manages to hold on to his sense of humor, even as tornadoes descend from the sky and the world collapses all around him. Vonnegut was a humanist more than anything; a humanist who was deeply disappointed with humanity.

What is disappointing to me is that Vonnegut seems to put a great deal of blame on God for the errors that we have committed. It’s the same problem that I have with pretty much every punk band playing today: I know that you’re pissed off at your creator. Do you have nothing else to say?

You don’t have to have seen the things that Vonnegut saw in his life to have a cynnical worldview. You don’t need a crystal ball to see that our civilization is not going to last for very much longer. It’s easy to look towards the future and think there’s no point to any of it.

But it takes real courage to see all of the horrors of our time, all of the great shortcomings of man, and to still be able to tell a joke in the face of death.

Shut up Dick

Dick Cheney has an uncanny ability for damaging the United States of America, an ability that he has continued to display despite being out of office.

In his most recent foray into the public limelight, Cheney appeared on Face the Nation and told us where his loyalty lies in regards to the direction of the Republican Party:

Bob Schieffer asked:

“Rush Limbaugh said the other day that the party probably would be better off of Colin Powell left and just became a Democrat and Colin Powell said Republicans would be better off they didn’t have Rush Limbaugh speaking for them. Where do you come down?“

Dick replied: “Well if I had to chose, in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was that Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.“

This comes on the heels of a public relations campaign by the former Vice President to defend the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees in the war on terror.  Now Dick claims that these “enhanced interrogation techniques,” known in the real world as torture, has saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.

But defending practices that any rational person would describe as barbaric isn’t enough for Dick. He’s also gone out of his way to undermine the new administration’s economic policies. Dick has a point there, especially because his ideas about the economy have worked out so well.

Nonetheless, it’s an unprecedented move for a former Vice President to actively undermine a sitting administration. Even President George W. Bush said that Obama deserves his silence. Kudos to W for having at least a little bit of class. Unlike Cheney, Bush knows that the Presidency is quite possibly the hardest job in the world: throwing stones is easy when you’re not the one calling the shots.

Dick Cheney is not helping anybody’s career, except perhaps Rush Limbaugh’s.

Dick Cheney is not making America more safe. Even if what he asserts is true, that torture stopped WMD attacks on American soil, it’s irrelevant. These practices represent a direct threat to our national security. The war on terror is long from over, and if a terrorist who was inspired by stories of waterboarding manages to detonate such a weapon and kill millions of Americans, then we really didn’t save any lives at all, did we?

Dick Cheney is not helping the Republican party by alienating the moderates, especially Colin Powell.

It doesn’t mean anything if I tell Dick Cheney to shut up. But there is one man whose voice will carry weight with the people that Cheney is attempting to rile up; one man who can still do this nation a great service.

George W. Bush has been very quiet since retiring to his new estate in Dallas. It’s time that he got up in front of a camera, and for the good of the Republican Party, for the good of the new administration, for the good of America, he needs to tell Dick Cheney to shut the hell up.

Star Trek Review

Ordinarily I would write an in-depth examination of the political themes in the new Star Trek movie. But this film captures the essence of the series: it’s about what it means to be a human being and that is far more important than any political point that can be made.

However, I will share my one liner regarding the only overt issue brought up in the story:

Notice how it’s the VILLAIN who engages in torture, not the heroes.

There. I said my piece, now let’s get to the review. This is a fucking awesome movie.

I am not a huge fan of the original series. I enjoyed the Next Gen series a good bit and occasionally dabbled in Deep Space Nine, but I am certainly not what you would call a Trekkie. I have never and will never dress up as a Klingon or attempt to learn the language. You will not catch me dead at a Star Trek convention, but I still love this movie.

The action sequences are fast and make it infuriatingly difficult to see what’s going on, but somehow, it works. You feel a sense of overwhelming danger and bewilderment that must be somewhat like the sensation of real combat.

The actors and actresses, especially Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, all hit a direct bulls-eye.

The director and writers have a seamless script that is never dull for a single second.

Your tastes may differ than mine. You might not like action movies or dog fights in space or snappy dialogue. But if you enjoy solid acting and storytelling, then I guarantee that you’ll dig this movie. Even if you think Captain Kirk would be cool with waterboarding.

Boycott HFCS

In my most recent post, I remarked that compared to Nazi propaganda, high fructose corn syrup is relatively harmless, and it is. Today I decided to do some more research into this stuff and now I’m not so sure.

There were a number of disturbing news articles and scientific reports on this substance, perhaps the worst of which is this one from the Washington Post about mercury levels therein. It would be one thing if it were merely about a sugary, fatty food substance that consumers can avoid via free will, but the possibility that HFCS contains mercury makes it a public health issue.

We need to stop buying all food items that contain high fructose corn syrup, immediately.

HFCS is most commonly found in cheap breads, sweeteners, condiments, and pop (soda for you freaks of nature out there), including: Ketchup, fruit drinks, Kellogs brand cereals, and cough syrups. For a more  complete list, please visit this link at Accidental Hedonist.

Why boycott? Why not just ban high fructose corn syrup? Because the government can’t be trusted to regulate the food industry, especially with regards to corn. The U.S. subsidizes corn production to the tune of billions of dollars every year.

Until the USDA takes the proper precautions regarding the dangers of this substance, we cannot risk consuming it.

Drill, baby Drill!

Robert Samuelson of Newsweek is puzzled as to why the Obama administration is biased against the oil and natural gas industries. Yet in the same breath he explains why someone might be weary of drilling on US soil:

“…None of these sources, of course, will quickly provide oil or natural gas… Extracting oil from shale (in effect, a rock) requires heating the shale and poses major environmental problems. Its economic viability remains uncertain…”

He goes on to complain about the shortcomings of green and renewable sources of energy:

“In 2007, wind and solar generated less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity. Even a tenfold expansion will leave their contribution small. By contrast, oil and natural gas now provide two-thirds of Americans’ energy. They will dominate consumption for decades…”

So, according to Mr. Samuelson, who has a very fine moustache…

The reason why we shouldn’t bother investing in solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy now is that we won’t see any changes in our consumption for the next several decades. So, why bother?

That’s forward thinking for you.

I think that Samuelson is on to something here. His approach can be applied to every sector of our society:

For example, why should lenders give out loans to students who won’t even graduate for another 4 years? It’s time to stop wasting precious financial resources on a sector that doesn’t even grow the economy, anyway.

Why should our military spend tax dollars on smaller, faster, cheaper weaponry that won’t be available in the theater for another decade?

I don’t put much stock in this whole moving picture phenomenon, either. There’s no way that it will ever replace the radio.

And what’s all this flapdoodle that I’ve been hearing about enclosed housing?

America and its leaders can’t be concerned with the problems of tomorrow. That’s for our children to deal with. I for one, prefer to let my children figure things out the hard way on their own: that way they don’t need to depend on me when they get older and eventually die from complications due to carbon pollution.

Oil is the way to go, because oil is what we’ve always used before, and it’s never let us down.

Drill, baby drill!

Charles Krauthammer, Fascist Pig

Charles Krauthammer is a fascist pig.

Writing for Real Clear Politics, he states that torture is ok if the bad guys are going to hurt us:

“Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent’s life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy.”

No, the choice is not easy.

If you, Charles Krauthammer, held a pair of pliers and a blowtorch in your hands and it was up to YOU to torture information out of a terrorist, the choice would not be easy.

It is VERY easy to live in the hypothetical universe.

Here in the real world, the choices that you make have actual consequences.

“Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting from war duty.”

Torture is wrong. Regardless of what intelligence that you get through it, or how many lives you save in the process.

This is where I get off the boat with conservatives. For all their talk about God and family and the sanctity of life, they don’t seem to have the slightest conception of what the 10 commandments are all about.

It states, pretty unequivocally, something about when killing people is appropriate. What was it again? I just can’t remember, it’s been a while since I memorized them in Sunday school. Can you help me out? I know it has something to do with not killing people, I just can’t put my finger on it…

Oh! Right!

It says thou shalt not kill.

Notice it does not say: thou shalt not kill, unless the guy is a member of a terrorist organization.

Notice it does not say: thou shalt not kill, unless he possesses intelligence of an imminent attack on your soveriegnty.

It says:

Thou. Shalt. Not. Kill.

Pacifism then, seems relatively in-line with Christianity. Then why are so many God fearing conservatives clamboring for the right to torture people?

Charles Krauthammer, source of all swine flu: there is a special place waiting for you.

Update:

Jack Cafferty ran a poll and it seems that people who frequently attend church services are more likely to consider torture acceptable than people who are not religious at all.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/01/why-are-frequent-churchgoers-more-likely-to-support-torture/

Now, I only attend services occasionally, but I still feel shameful about the results of this poll.

Absolutely shameful.