Last night I really put my foot into my mouth with a friend who is having perhaps the worst week of her life, and it utterly prevented me from getting either much sleep or much writing done, outside of the letter I wrote to her, much to my shame. This lunchtime, though, I don't have any pressing errands or any such things to compose, so there definitely will be a Snivel today.

Incidentally, today is the anniversary of my first day at work; and, who knows, the way things are going, it might not even be the last.

They're even getting baseball legend Tommy Lasorda to speak on behalf of this amendment, for which he cites an episode during a game in the world series when some evil communist decided to burn an American flag right there, for the whole world to see. Suddenly everyone, in the "greatest act of heroism he'd ever seen," rushed to save the flag before it could be put to torch. Now, I'm probably an idiot, but saving a flag from a fiery fate seems to me about as heroic as saving a soul. Which is to say, it isn't heroic at all, unless you're a right-wing Christian authoritarian who believes in things like the supremacy of America and the importance of saving sinners' souls. Tragically, America is full of people like that, which is perhaps the problem. I am amazed -- simply amazed -- at the chilling, small-minded statement this makes about what is supposedly the greatest nation in the world. I truly doubt that people really think about what burning an American flag means. Do you know what it means? I'll tell you what it means. It means nothing. Absolutely nothing, and that stands for any flag, including the Canadian one, once the status of the flag comes before the rights of the people it represents. A flag is a symbol, and nothing more. It's something you put atop gas stations and in the window of your apartment until you can afford to buy drapes. I think there's a point being missed here, and it is this: if you live in a country where your right to do foolish things like burning your own flag is protected, it must be conceded that this country is (in all hopes) more concerned with protecting its citizens essential rights to free expression over the more politically tempting cause of protecting patriotic, nationalistic sentiments. This is a fundamentally good thing. In a country where flag burning isn't allowed, you're telling your citizens that the flag is more important than they are, and presumably that any other rights they enjoy are equally superficial once they become inconvenient to people ultimately more concerned with preserving and propagating nationalistic objectives. More to the point, I think the obvious temptation to burn a flag in a country where it has been expressly forbidden is being completely overlooked. No one cares if you burn a flag, but making it illegal turns it into precisely the sort of meaningful rebellious statement that people disposed towards meaningful rebellious statements enjoy. Hell, I'd do it just for the irony. Sometimes doing something illegal is the best way to protest its illegality and expose the ludicrous and unjust nature of the law. I hope you've all seen the episode of the Simpons in which Itchy and Scratchy have been cancelled, and to fill its slot on the Krusty the Clown show, Krusty winds up airing an obvious parody of Schoolhouse Rock, in which a constitutional amendment to make flag burning illegal explains to a dimwitted cartoon child through song that it would be a great idea because hippie freaks have too many rights. It's a brilliant song and you can get it on CD, and, well, probably on the internet too (ah, .mp3 files... where would copyright violation be without you?). I thought flag burning as an issue was dead and gone in the United States, but apparently there are still people more concerned with whether or not flags are protected more than free speech is, than, say, whether or not their children can read or their cities are being torn apart by racial strife and crippling poverty. Hey, maybe they could make it illegal to be poor, too. That oughta make everything better.

Another American thing that pisses me off is the state of Texas. Two of Lilith's most significant loves originated in Texas (a boyfriend previous to me, and Meat Loaf), and so it is that this particular boundary has a special place in her heart. And since I'm at root an insecure and wretchedly pathetic little person, I did at some vague level resent Texas simply because it often got affection I felt I was slightly lacking. But more specifically, Texas is also engaged in small-minded, politically motivated, extremist ideology, and that being that a small number of powerful Texans really have it in for the Disney corporation. Now, I'm the first person to criticize Disney, at least in the sense that they've never made a buck off of distorting my life, nor have they ever tried to crush me for violating some precious trademark. However, Disney does have a way of in general doing any and all things possible to make money. Disney also takes great stories, simplifies them, gives them happy endings, and sells them to children like they had both the Brothers Grimm alive, well-fed, and working for them. And let's be frank -- Disney cartoons, the classic ones with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, have never been as good as Looney Tunes cartoons. Disney preserves some of the most saccharine-sweet of traditional American values, and I guess the question has to be, what could is possibly be that Disney is doing which has offended Southern Baptists and Texan politicians?

Essentially, the fact that Disney owns many subsidiary companies, and has so far avoided exterting any constrictive controls on the media produced by such businesses as Miramax studies and (I believe) Hollywood Records. In protest of Disney's complicity in the promotion of anti-Christian, pro-homosexual, pro-promiscuity, pro-drug values, the small minded religious and political right have decided to bankrupt Disney into submission. Which frankly is like me trying to get God to cut it out by biting priests or not saying my prayers. Disney hasn't budged, because Disney isn't afraid, and rightly so. I might fear and loathe the Disney store in the Rideau Centre, but I'm all for its existence if the tremendous revenues generated by such bloody-minded merchandising can make a company like Disney oblivious and unsympathetic to the, again, crybaby fits thrown by closed-minded and ignorant people when presented with differing values and opinions. In general, the Christian right is encouraging its flock of sheep to boycott any and all Disney and Disney-related products, events, businesses and media until such time as Disney complies with their ridiculous demands and starts encouraging some serious pro-American, pro-Christian values again, instead of contributing to the nebulous moral decay of America's people.

In particular, parts of Texas, and possibly the entire state, are going about the process of selling any and all shares in companies related to the Disney corporation, as a protest of its involvement in corrupting America's children. Specifically named is the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, because it wraps so many objectionable issues into one slickly-written and highly successful feature film. And let's face, it Pulp Fiction still rocks. I own a copy, and now I'm even gladder for it, because I'm sure Columbia House had to give at least twelve cents to Disney for the license, and possibly more. Apparently Pulp Fiction promotes homosexuality, drug abuse, violence, filthy language, and racial mixing. Actually, I just threw "racial mixing" into the list because I'm an asshole, but I'm still positive that at heart so many of these closed-minded recnecks are secretly KKK members, or at least the sort of people who like flying Confederate flags from the radio antennas of their big freaking pickup trucks (yeah, Rob, more Texan stereotypes! Make them them pay! Yeah!) and feel the world would be a better place if America's schools could be kept free from all "them darkies." I love Pulp Fiction, and damn you trendy "bah, Tarantino is so five minutes ago...." trendies who say otherwise. Phil and I shared our first kiss during the anal rape scene, and it has sentimental value.
They also named brilliant films like Clerks and Chasing Amy as being particularly evil, again for their ringing endorsements of both foul language and homosexuality. I'm shocked that people have this kind of spare time on their hands to worry about what media might poison the minds of their precious Bible-thumping, book-burning, homophobic, racially intolerant and cretinous offspring. Except possibly that they might think that the minds of their children are poisoned quite enough, thank you very much, "and if we want them poisoned anymore we'll do it in the privacy of our own homes or possibly our churches or maybe our KKK rallies."

Meanwhile, there has been absolutely no move at all to separate the revenues generated through Texas' investments from companies even more traditionally assocated with good, clean, family values, like those marketing alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explicit pornography, which so far remain untouched, unnamed, and wholly encouraged. And I bet if you asked these moral authorities as to whether they themselves had personally ever scrutinized this material themselves, or where they simply on the rampage on the word of mouth that so often spreads reactionary sentiments among people who spend too much time letting the opinions of other extremist crybabies govern their own decisions.

Words like "morality" set my teeth to grating, like when you hear a fingernail scratched on a blackboard (although that doesn't particularly bother me, though certainly I wouldn't want to put that CD on infinite repeat). "Morality" is basically a word for a value you can't defend or rationalize. Morality is set in stone by things like taboo, and by religion, and isn't much good for anything except getting a lot of people with red faces and appetites for hypocrisy really really angry about things which in the end aren't half as important or justifiable as they might pretend. It's amazingly simpleminded of certain elements of the American population to honestly believe that all of America's problems would miraculously fade into history if only its people would return to the false values believed to have been present in the nineteen fifties -- like, rabidly paranoiacal anti-Communism, prayer in schools, duck-and-cover, racism, segregation, "Mom stays at home, cleans the house, and makes babies, because that's what women do," and raging homophobia. There is way too much emphasis placed on the moral decay of the American people, as opposed to the crumbling decay of its educational system, the poverty of its children, the wavering literacy rate, the environmental rape of the entire country by unrestricted corporations, its rapidly vanishing supply of clean freshwater, the migration of so many of its jobs to foreign countries and the growing prevalence of fundamentalist Christian agendas interfering in the free activities of secular concerns like that of a state.

That being said, I'll close by instructing you to go read a book. A good book, mind you, and no going and reading the Bible, because as important as it is to read everything and be ignorant of nothing, you can find at least as much wisdom and ethical conduct in a copy of Hustler magazine, and frankly Christianity is far more guilty of turning women into dehumanized sexual objects far more than Larry Flynt is. Or, you know, go watch Clerks again, or Pulp Fiction, or any movie you like that a Southern Baptist would hate. And have sex. Lots of it. And then masturbate. And then read Darwin's Descent of Man. And then burn a flag. Any flag, while you still can. And then come to Canada, if you don't already live here, and kiss a Canadian, because so far we're not half as bad as a society. Heck, just kiss me, because if enough people love me, I can rise to power and rule the world, and I promise, if elected, that I'll make the world a better place for all intelligent human beings.

Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.

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