What is the world coming to?

.

My Grandmother told me the world was going to hell in a handbasket. While you may imagine environmental collapse, an asteroid collision, or the Rapture as our apocalypse, my blood always chills at the thought of planet-sized handbaskets.

At 4:03 he cocks and uncocks his fist.

This dude got a "beat-down" from "girl gang members." You'll have to fast forward through four minutes of bitches yapping at the guy before the first hissy slap. One of the more tuff gals hits him on the head with an empty soda bottle. Damn, girl! I like the part where he gets up, cocks his fist, but just sits back down sweet as pie. Just because she's got a doo-rag on doesn't mean she's not a girl.
He has learned there are people not to be scared of:
1. People with super baggy pants. They cannot run or spread their legs as far apart as they might need to to avoid being knocked over.
2. People with long hair. Unless they know how to use it like a whip, long hair functions pretty much like a handle.
3. Girls.
4. Bikers and other Gangs. Gangs are a largely homosexual enterprise. Early jail time, access to party drugs, fashionable dress, minimal co-ed groupings...

The heroine and her war-bear discuss
A. J. Ayer's philosophy of 'logical positivism'
in this scene from A Golden Compass

A Golden Compass
I love it when I am told not to see some crappy movie I wouldn't see in a hundred years anyway because it is immoral. But A Golden Compass has zeppelins and count-em two (2!) talking polar bears. Ow! Ouch! Phil Pullman has said specifically that he wrote his series of books "...to undermine the basis of Christian belief."
The Judeo-Christian tradition doesn't have a lot of magic talking animals (2?), but magic talking animals are squarely within the realm of religion. Some religions are nothing but. Parallel worlds, ancient prophecies, right and wrong, and allegory as thick as a Baptist hymnal. All religion. Sorry, Phil.
Just try to make a kids' movie about acid-base titrations, Johnny Science. It would blow like your old Grandma. They can't do that, so they just resort to knocking the church here, which they call the Magisterium. I like to root for the bad guys in childrens' films anyways. They always have the better actors. Go Magisterium!

The election...
Isn't for another gaddamn year. Nevertheless, the new media has made real possibilities out of would-be also-rans. If ersatz-third-party outsiders like Kucinich or Paul get elected they will sell out the Beltway Old Guard and the book containing all the dirty tricks of the last 40 years will be opened. If they even try to do what they say, it will shatter the federal infrastructure. I would love that. That's the same side of me that loved 9/11, though, and isn't that what happened to Britain? The divisiveness of third+ parties made that government incapable of doing anything, stripped of patriotism and a permanent lame duck. Or maybe Barack? I love how even liberals call this Senator by his first name. Just like I call my 65-year old black doorman 'Bobby' and he calls me 'Mr. Kapuchinski' or 'Sir.' But seriously, does electing a black president get us whites off the hook in country? I am fine if it's that. I don't want to elect him president and then find out later it doesn't count because he's not black enough. Junior Senators are too shuck-n' jive for the presidency anyway. Too bad Colin Powell never ran (cough-too classy-cough) (cough-complicity in Mai Lai tribunal's failure to sentence-cough).

.