This time it’s Hinduism. (Well, the Thai government as pertains to taboos concerning the representation on stage of Rama, one of the avatars of Vishnu.)

I’ve been spending a lot of time dancing at the Cadillac Ranch (Exit 31 off I-84 in Southington!) and I’ve gotten to thinking. How awesome would it be to hear a country song that turns every expectation on its head? I’m not sure exactly how it would go, but it should involve: driving a hybrid, polyamorous bisexual free love, joining a radical union at a blue collar job, a bloodhound’s right to run free of human dominion, straight edge remedies for heartache, a scathing critique of US foreign policy, parents that would never dream of striking their children, advocating strict separation of church and state, and singing the praises of the Northeast. Cledus T. Judd could write, Willie Nelson and the Dixie Chicks could sing. We could call it “Getting Down on the Fair Trade Organic Farming Cooperative.”

America, I have some good news, and some bad news.

The good news is, we took the House away from the Republicans.

The bad news is, we gave it to the Democrats.

According to WFSB

I know there are a number of Connecticutians reading this, so I’d thought I’d ask for some help deciding how to cast my gubernatorial vote. I can’t decide between Rell and DeStefano, mostly because I don’t really like either of them. Rell is probably the best Republican we’re going to get, what with the fact she favors women’s rights and she isn’t a complete homophobe. Then again, there’s rumors of abusing her power to let her son get out of trouble for one of those crimes I think should actually be a crime. (Property destruction, though I don’t remember the exact details.) And let us not forget the dread Taint of Rowland. DeStefano I don’t know much about. All he’s got going for him so far is that I tend to vote Democrat over Republican in most cases where there’s no Libertarian. Both of them have promised to get me a job. :-) Anybody think they can convince me either way? (Keep in mind, I’m coming from a libertarian perspective. I hate taxes and I hate being told what to do, even if they’re right.) If there are any third party candidates that I don’t know about and might find pallatable, feel free to mention them, as well.

EXTRA CREDIT: If anybody could explain the attraction to Hugo Chavez, I’d love to hear it. I honestly don’t understand. Here I thought that socialist quasi-dictators were bad, and I should think any person who claims to love freedom would stand very much opposite him. If I hate Bush for taking too many powers, abridging too many freedoms, and vilifying foreign leaders to score political points, surely I should have at the very least equal contempt for Chavez, no?

When the Levees Broke, Brendan’s debut in a documentary, will be available on DVD December 19. Makes a great stocking stuffer. :-)

So, now that I, guest-blogger Sean Vivier, have become one of the half of all teachers to leave teaching within the first few years, any ideas what I should do to make a living? Remember, the ultimate goal is to be a professional writer, preferably sci-fi/fantasy with maybe some commentary on the side. But considering I’ve made a grand total of $80 in writing revenue in the last two years, something tells me I’m not going to make enough money on my “writing career” just yet…

Blue State looks hilarious.

From IMDB: “Blue State is a romantic comedy about a disgruntled Democrat who actually follows though on a drunken campaign promise to move to Canada if George ‘Dubya’ Bush gets re-elected.”

Coming 2007.

A Japanese supernatural martial arts epic complete with a kitsune (trickster fox spirit), multiple oni (demons) and even some tengu (goblins). Maybe a nekomata (necromancer cat) for good measure.

Knight Rider vs. Dukes of Hazzard.

Farscape: The Nebari Resistance (as long as Stark is in it).

Sports Night: The Movie

And finally, a movie I would not pay to see:

SciFi Original’s Kitsune: Picking a creature from the Encyclopedia Mythica at random, SciFi Channel presents seven shallow, unlikeable characters as they face a bad CGI fox creature inside the barest of plots with several misinterpretations of the original Japanese legend.

Alternate title: Sword control means using both hands.

Britain wants to ban swords, especially “samurai swords.” My only question… if I move to Britain, do I get to keep my bokken, a traditional wooden practice katana?

Recently, the Libertarian Party reduced its platform from 60-something to 15 points. Don’t get me wrong. We still love guns and gay sex, but now we’re not so worried what you think about our position on space travel. The idea is to dilute the message a little to get more voters who like government more than we do, but who still don’t want as much as Democrats and Republicans. The idea is that we need to get enough support to weaken government a little before we can ever hope to weaken government a lot.

So far, the idea has backfired, with many passionate libertarians splitting to create the Boston Tea Party. Me? I think it’s all a silly distraction. As if people didn’t see us as a joke when that Libertarian drank enough colloidal silver to turn himself blue…

Eleven score and ten years ago today, Thomas Jefferson presented his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. After two days to remove all that pesky stuff about the evils of slavery, they adopted it, translated it into all the languages spoken in the colonies, and sent it out so that everyone could know.

I don’t feel patriotic just seeing waving flags and kids in uniform and eagles soaring. When I feel patriotic is when I walk into a restaurant owned by Pakistani immigrants who sell me a pizza (invented in Italy but adapted for American tastebuds) or a hamburger (named after a city in Germany) before I get into my Japanese car. I feel patriotic when I see the scene in Something New where young African-American men lead a waltz, then segue comfortably into a step routine. I feel a surge of patriotism when I think of all the musical styles that are syncretic, but distinctly American: country, rock, blues, jazz, hip hop, rap. I feel patriotic when I see that West Point invited an anarchist like Noam Chomsky to speak to a class on just war theory, then the students politely ask questions and applaud at the end. It’s a comfort to know that no matter how far we may stray from our ideals, a gifted linguist like Chomsky will never be disappeared. I feel my patriotism when I see the things invented by American ingenuity: jeans (which I still insist are work clothes, just as they were intended), planes, telephones, light bulbs, sewing machines, computers, etc. (And a special nod to artificial hearts and the polio vaccine.) My patriotism comes to the fore when I’m in a group and we comfortably move between discussions of movies and fashions to politics and philosophy and back and forth… because nobody’s going to arrest us for it. I love that I can live in an apartment that has gargoyles (French), a dreamcatcher (aboriginal American), Japanese weaponry, Spanish literature alongside English literature (sometimes translated from German), and foods originally from every corner of the earth. I love that I can learn the ballroom dance of Europe and Latin America as well as the distinctly American country line dance. I love that I don’t even know the historical origins of half the things I own because we blend cultures so readily. I love that I can say or write whatever I please - usually in a language combing several Germanic languages with influences from Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and Algonquin, but sometimes in a language based upon Latin with French, English, Arabic, Visigoth, and Nahuatl influences - and my options are only rarely limited. So if I criticize you sometimes, Lady Liberty, know that it’s only because I love you and I want to help you be even better. But that said, this weekend, let’s just concentrate on the positive, on why we love you so much.

P.S. Also, happy birthday to Canada yesterday. You guys are pretty cool, too.

I’m going to write a note asking that several students be excused from sports, as they have Spanish class.

Our army should march to the Canadian border. I mean, right at the Canadian border, as in one step forward is an invasion and a sneeze is a biological attack on Canadian soil. Then, in chorus, our army should shout, “Not touching, can’t get mad!”

The late Carl Sagan has a special place in Brendan’s heart, I know. A dedicated scientist and featured narrator in middle school science classes, he’s most famous to us for the lilting way he says, “There are more stars in the universe… than there are… grains of sand… on all the beaches… of all the world.” He also wrote a book called The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. As the title suggests, it was an attack on all superstition, pseudoscience, and religion (especially cults). He honestly didn’t understand why people turned to such things, when the natural world had plenty of wonder and mystery to spare. How could you look at a nebula, for example, and still need the supernatural to feel a sense of awe? More to the point, at the end of the book, he hopes that future entertainment will stop sending the message that believing the irrational is a virtue. Perhaps instead of the X-Files, for example, there might be a show about a man who debunks UFO sightings and crop circles and conspiracy theories and the like.

I think Sagan’s dream might very well be slowly but surely coming true. Sure there are still shows on Sci-Fi that try to convince us that science fiction is real, but there’s a growing number of shows dedicated to reason. There’s the non-fiction first. Discovery Channel has MythBusters, wherein special effects experts put urban legends to the test - and usually have some form of explosion in the process. Moreover, when somebody brings up a rational counterargument, they revisit the myth! Showtime has Penn and Teller: Bullsh*t! (as spelled in the actual title). Magicians Penn and Teller follow the example of their hero Houdini and expose quacks. They spend half the time on politics and half thrashing pseudoscience.

And now it’s spread to fiction. It makes sense for a fanciful show like Lost or Battlestar Galactica to operate outside reality, though even Lost might be interpreted with some rational explanations, but it’s refreshing for more “realistic” shows to actually have some realism. Take Fox’s House or CBS’s Numb3rs. Numb3rs uses math to solve crimes. In the words of Charlie’s voiceover: “It’s logic. It’s rationality.” The psychics have nothing to offer the investigation, and in one episode Charlie proves a psychic a fraud. Better yet is House. Though I doubt that many atheists in one place follows the laws of probability, House isn’t afraid to outright tell people that their faith has no basis in reality whatsoever, he’ll stick to medicine, thanks. The faith healers accomplish nothing (unless they’re carrying a herpes virus that attacks cancer cells which they spread to a cancer patient, anyway). House does.

Anyhow, I thought it was worth note. Me, I like my completely implausible scenarios with good characters (that everybody knows are fiction) right beside my realistic fiction with a penchant for ridiculing the ridiculous side by side.