Thursday, December 04, 2003

Wow! I'm very surprised! I have a confirmed readership of . . . 5 people! I had no idea I was so popular!

Ha ha, seriously though, there's plenty to rant about.

Ah, it's finally here. Christmas, that wonderful time of the year when we joyously celebrate the birth of our savior with an orgy of materialism, shopping, and consumerism. How lovely. This season never ceases to amaze me. What should be a joy has turned into a nightmare. I try hard not to participate, but immersion in culture is hard to overcome, especially when it is so prevalent.

But what amazes me is what this elicits from people. Did anyone else hear about the woman trampled at a Wal-Mart in the wee hours Friday after Thanksgiving over $30 DVD players? People sicken me so much. I'm not sure what turns my stomach more, the fact that people actually knocked her over and walked over her to get to the display of DVD players, or that they left her there. You see, store personnel found her later. This means people continued to walk over her and just leave her there long after she originally fell. What have we become as a people?

Actually, this brings up another incident. I found out today about a woman who ran over another woman in the parking lot of a fastfood restaurant. Why did she do this? Because the woman put the wrong toppings on her burger. That's right folks, this lady broke another woman's pelvis because her burger was screwed up. Again, I'm confused about what to be more amazed about. Should it be that she ran down this woman with her car over burger toppings? Or should I be amazed that, in order to run her down with her car, she had to go wait in the parking lot for the woman? This means that minutes, even hours after her burger was wrong in the first place, she waited for this woman. How distorted must your view of reality be to think that running her over with your car was just desserts? How seriously ticked off must you be to wait in a parking lot for hours to run someone over because of a burger? Lord Jesus, come quickly.

In other news, Thanksgiving was an exciting time. Especially for the troops in Iraq. I know a lot of people are quick to condemn it as just a silly publicity stunt, but I don't think so. Sure, President Bush probably realized that he would look good in the public's eye for doing such a thing, but does that automatically mean that his good deed was done purely for selfish reasons? Or can the President do no good deeds without such a charge being made? Personally, I think it was probably more for the troops (and himself), considering the great risk he took by going to Iraq. I mean, if I were an Iraqi soldier and I knew that Bush was coming to town, I'd be making every possible attempt to take a good shot at him. He went to Iraq at great risk to himself, but talk about moralizing to the troops. I think he showed great leadership in doing so, which is more than we can say for how some Presidents have led our military.

So, what else has been going on? Did you hear that Abercrombie & Fitch pulled their winter catalogues from their stores? Some people want to attribute it to the boycott from conservative groups, but A&F is saying it's to make room for perfume displays. Either way, A&F is resolute in continuing to peddle their crappy merchandise through the overused medium that is sex. I'm not sure who to believe, but I definitely support the boycott. For some reason, some people see no problem with using sex (orgies, in the case of the winter A&F catalogue) to advertise to young teens. Is nothing sacred anymore? Is there ever a "too far"? This is a company that was making thongs for 9 year olds. I don't understand why people just sit back and say "Eh, whatever, doesn't affect me, sex sells, blah blah blah . . ."

Yeesh. If you can't see what's wrong with using naked models to sell clothing, much less to people who are barely past childhood, then you have bigger problems than over-tolerance of advertising. In any case, I need to end this rant. Until next time, people!

Hal

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