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| Wednesday, June 15, 2005 01:41 PM |
| Faith and Fantasy |
 by Fëanor |
I didn't post yesterday, and that means two things: 1. I'm much busier at work than I have been for a while, and 2. This post is going to be really, really long.
- Those who pee on public* toilet seats are not fit to live in a civilized society. They should be banished from the eyes of man, and forced to live in the desert, where they can do their business in the bushes with the other animals.
Either that, or they should be executed.
- The latest PA takes an unexpected turn. Man, I wish Kung-Foo Rooster was a real show.
- So, you might have heard, if you live on this planet, or were just visiting it in the last day or so, that Michael Jackson got acquitted of all charges in his molestation trial. This result shouldn't have been surprising to anyone who's read even a little bit about the trial. The prosecution had a shaky case which seemed to include no physical evidence, and consisted mainly of hearsay and testimony from really crazy, unreliable witnesses. Regardless of whether you think Jackson did it or not, it's hard to argue with the verdict.
No, what really shocks and horrifies me the most about this whole sequence of events is not the verdict or the trial or even Jackson himself (although, OMG, WTF is with that guy? Is he even human anymore?), but Jackson's supporters. I mean, look at these people. What is wrong with them? I read that one woman released a dove for each charge at the announcement of Michael's acquittal. Guh?!
Okay, you're entitled to your opinion, but how can you be so sure about it? Haven't you seen all those news reports where they talk to the neighbor of the serial killer, and he always says, "Yeah, he seemed like such a nice, quiet guy. I never had any problems with him." And that's somebody who lived next to the guy, who interacted with him on a daily basis. You can be ignorant of all kinds of shameful secrets about your own relatives, about your spouse, people that you know and love and live with for years.
But these Jackson fans, people who have never met the man, who have only ever seen him from a distance or on TV, are absolutely certain that they know what this man does or does not do with little boys inside the confines of his crazy theme park mansion.
I don't get it. I really don't. But then again, I also don't get people who are totally sure that God exists. Faith is a funny and an amazing thing. In both cases--Jackson's innocence or guilt, and the existence or non-existence of God--we here on the outside of things, while we can certainly have opinions on the subjects, cannot possibly be confident of any conclusions we make. We just can't know for sure. It seems pretty clear to me that Jackson is probably guilty (although I certainly hope he's not, for the kids' sakes, if not for his), and that God probably does not exist (although I certainly hope he does, for all our sakes), but I don't know. I wasn't there at Neverland when those kids were staying over. I wasn't there when the universe was created, or when they rolled that rock out of the way.
It's nice to believe in things. But it's also important to admit when you just don't know shit about something.
Of course, I'm basing my thought and discourse here on a belief in reason and logic, and probably most of the people I'm talking about here don't do that. So there you go.
Hmm, this particular bullet point travelled far of field, and even got a bit philosophical. Let's rein things in here a bit...
- Two separate and unrelated movies are apparently going to be made based on Beowulf. They tried to do this before, and I think that version was really, really bad, but I can't remember anything about it, so I can't be sure. I'm betting that I blocked it out because it was so awful, though. I mean, I love Christopher Lambert, but he's not usually in good movies.
Anyway, I really can't imagine any movie based on Beowulf coming out well. I mean, how can you possibly take an Old English epic poem and transform it into a contemporary movie? I love the poem myself--the story and the style of it really appeal to me for whatever reason--and I see from the plot summary provided by the Movie Blog that at least one of the movies is already straying quite a bit from the original plot.
Still, as always with projects like this, I'll be fascinated to see how these movies turn out.
- I remember loving the Seven parody clip starring William Shatner that they played on the MTV movie awards a few years ago, and I always kind of wished I could see it again somehow. Luckily, someone's made a quicktime movie of it! Check it out; it's so awesome. (Thanks go to the Movie Blog for the link.)
* What you do in the privacy of your own home is your affair, you filthy beast.
UPDATE: I totally have George Michael's song "Faith" stuck in my head now. Damn it. |
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