Category Archives: Censorship

the wit and wisdom of the Simpsons

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to alcohol!

Parents are always complaining that there is nothing educational, life-affirming or decent in children’s television programming. Usually right before they fire up yet another round of Grand Theft Auto.

In any case, we here at the ol’ raincoaster blog beg to differ. There is, in fact, an excellent cartoon show which teaches kids the real life lessons that they will come to rely on as they learn to make their way in this crazy, mixed-up world we live in.

Lessons like “When adults hate their jobs they don’t quit. They just do them really, really half-assed.”

From West Egg via Fark:

Homer to Billy Corgan (of the Smashing Pumpkins): “Thanks to your gloomy, depressing music, my children no longer hope for the future I can not afford to give them.”
Corgan: “Yeah, we try to make a difference.”

Homer: The code of the schoolyard, Marge! The rules that teach a boy to be a man. Let’s see. [enumerates them on his fingers] Don’t tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do. What else…
The whole cast

Lisa: [sigh] I’ve got to stop being so petty. I should be Alison’s friend, not her competitor. I mean…she is a wonderful person…
Bart: Way to go, Lis. I mean, why compete with someone who’s just going to kick your butt anyway?
Lisa: [pause] I prefer my phrasing.

Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: “It’s hip to be square”.
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it’s… cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I’m glad. And that’s what makes me cool, not caring, right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we’ve tried everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you’re truly cool, you don’t need to be told you’re cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?

UCLA protest over tasering

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I'm a student; don't taser me!

Today at high noon, UCLA students staged a protest of the November 14th tasering of fellow student Mostafa Tabatabainejad by University Campus Police officers. As reported by pretty much every media outlet in the world, Tabatabainejad was using a library computer and failed to produce his student card for police, whereupon they tasered him repeatedly, an event which was captured on video.

As he was dragged away, he was heard to cry, “I’m not fighting you” and “I said I would leave.”

Let’s remind ourselves that one is under no legal obligation whatsoever to identify one’s self to police officers if one is not under arrest.

None.

There’s a large serving of “Blame the Victim” going on around the blogosphere, but let’s reduce this to the key issues:

  • Tabatabainejad was a bit of a jerkoff

  • that is not illegal

  • Tabatabainejad was within his rights to refuse to produce his ID

  • no crime was being committed, nor did the police have any reason to believe a crime was being committed or was going to be committed

  • the function of the police, in the absence of an actual crime, is to maintain the peace and public order

  • these particular officers could not be said to have done so in anything like an effective manner

  • unquestioning obedience to the arbitrary demands of armed authority is the hallmark of a police state and contrary to the goals of the Founding Fathers of the United States; it is inherently and perfectly un-American.

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moonbat conspiracist on Al Jazeera: The Nobel Prize Is Racist and Stems from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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Paranoia will destroy yaIf Al Jazeera‘s going to be interviewing these cryptopaths on a regular basis, I may have to get cable; this interview (from Halloween, no less) is historic in its moonbatty loop-tasticy.

Following are excerpts from an interview with Samir ‘Ubeid, an Iraqi researcher living in Europe, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on October 31, 2006:

Samir ‘Ubeid: I don’t call it the Nobel prize – I call it the “Hubal” [idol] prize.

Interviewer: Hubal?

Samir ‘Ubeid: Yes, because it often encourages heresy. It encourages attacks against the heritage, and encourages those who scorn their people and their culture…

Interviewer: In other words, if you are a traitor to your country, you deserve this prize.

Samir ‘Ubeid: If you are a traitor to your country, and a heretic, who curses his Prophet, you deserve a Nobel Prize…

Mother Teresa was brought, along with a group of people like her…

Interviewer: Some say the prize was awarded to her for her missionary activity in Africa, India, and so on…

Samir ‘Ubeid: Let’s assume she was righteous, according to the logic of the media, which is now controlled by the Jews and Hollywood. When they awarded the prize to Teresa, they were trying to award an “artificial hymen” or “artificial honor” to this prize. My colleague said that there is democracy. What democracy is there, if out of 1.5 billion Chinese, only two or three were awarded the Nobel? If you examine the Russian scientists and writers, who shook the world with their literature and their knowledge… What about Sakharov, what about Tolstoy? In addition…

Interviewer: But Sakharov was awarded the Nobel prize.

Samir ‘Ubeid: I meant Chekhov. Chekhov! Chekhov!

Yep, some days, thinks the interviewer, it really is worth digging them out of the caves for an interview. Can’t you just picture him patiently steepling his fingers and straightening his notes as he tries hard not to burst into derisive laughter?

“For this,” he thinks, “I went to Oxford.”

Bart's not taking any chances

art appreciators unappreciated

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Hoodie art 

The security guys at the Lowry centre are obviously not Tories; they don’t seem to want to hug these hoodies. They’re far more focused on preventing them from entering the public gallery to view the art their parents paid taxes for them to be able to see.

How fortunate for us that, in amongst the various hoodlum accoutrements, they had a hidden camera and microphone.

Armed with camera phones and a tape recorder, the Salford Star team sent a group of lads to the Lowry centre. “We won’t last two minutes,” was the teens’ prediction.

“They’ve got to let you in – it’s a public building, paid for by your parents … of course they’ll let you in,” responded the Star. “They’re talking all the time about how they want to reach out to ‘young people in the community’…”

Here’s what happened…(follwed by a rather glitchy slideshow, with decent-quality audio accompaniment)

Afterwards, the Star spoke to the six lads again about their experience
Josh: I knew they were going to kick us out straight away, because we are a local group.

Would you ever go back?
Carl: No, because it’s rubbish

What did you think about the Lowry’s attitude towards you?
Kane: It was really bad, just because we had our hoods on.
Rees: They said it wasn’t open to the public and it was.

Do you get treated like that all the time?
Rees: It happens everywhere.

Do your parents pay council tax that funds the Lowry?
Carl: Yes – they shouldn’t have to pay towards it if we’re not allowed in.

the Communist Manifesto, by Disney

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and via BoingBoing. Please try to overlook, or at least laugh at, the fact that the narrator pronounces it “Boozhwazie.”

Displaying a broad range of Golden Age Hollywood animation, Manifestoon is a homage to the latent subversiveness of cartoons. Though U.S. cartoons are usually thought of as conveyors of capitalist ideologies of consumerism and individualism, Drew observes: “Somehow as an avid childhood fan of cartoons, these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson—that of the ‘trickster’ nature of many characters as they mocked, outwitted and defeated their more powerful adversaries. In the classic cartoon, brute strength and heavy artillery are no match for wit and humor, and justice always prevails. For me, it was natural to link my own childhood concept of subversion with an established, more articulate version [Marx and Engels‘ Communist Manifesto]. Mickey running over the globe has new meaning in today’s mediascape, in which Disney controls one of the largest concentrations of media ownership in the world”