Dec. 15th, 2005

dreamer_easy: (xmas)
Christmas Invasion SPOILERS in this posting at the "American Thinker" site. The poster complains that the BBC bashes America - based on a few lines from media reports. An email response - admirably, posted complete and unmocked - points out the error of their ways.

This is one example of a widespread paranoia about criticism of the US or its government, whether that criticism comes from its own citizens or from forrin devils. Barry Loudermilk's "assimilate or get out" chain email opens with a whinge about signs saying "God Bless America!" being removed from schools, since the US is a Christian country; although he grudgingly admits the existence of the First Amendment, apparently Rep. Loudermilk is unaware of the Establishment Clause.

This isn't an exclusively American problem, of course. Similar hysteria occurred in Sydney when Christmas decorations said "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" and the Mayor pointed out that not everyone in Sydney is Christian. Horrors. Thankfully Australians have never been able to take themselves quite seriously; DC has the breathtaking Lincoln Memorial, New South Wales has the dog on the tuckerbox.
dreamer_easy: (bitchplease)
Further to my previous posting, [livejournal.com profile] gdwessel just posted a link to a splendid rant against Conservative correctness and the eval Jewish Liberal WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS ZOMG!!!!!!!! ADSDA;S;D;!!!! "Sorry? We’re not so hot on paying for an inflatable camel for your goddamn nativity scene and suddenly we’re Slobodan fucking Milosevic?" (Be warned, there is mockery, but more of human institutions than of God.)
dreamer_easy: (boring)
Am attempting to watch the 1989 Around The World With Eighty Days with Pierce Brosnan and Eric Idle. (I mean they're in it, not that they're sharing the sofa with me, cats, rubbish etc). IT IS TEH SUXX0R ZOMG. Brosnan is perfect casting as Fogg as neither one ever displays any form of facial expression but OMG NOTHING IS HAPPENING. The whole point of the story is the desperate haste and this miniseries is all about DAWDLING. Even Mr Brosnan's awesome posture (and it is awesome) is not enough to hold my interest.

(French writer; English character, Irish actor; French character, English actor. It's like The Moonbase, or any of those futuristic stories made in the sixties which are International because they have a French guy and a Scottish guy or something.)
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
There are a lot of bad SF stories in which Women Have Taken Over and Made Men Their Slaves. The authors have a number of motives - kinkiness, showing why women should be excluded from power, etc - but one important motive is the secret fear that They Will Do To Us What We Did To Them.

I think there's an element of this secret fear in the many wildly exaggerated claims about Our Way of Life being In Danger. So often Western culture has been the wave that's swept away, or the hammer that's tried to crush, other cultures. We remember the Welsh Not and so we rave at immigrants to learn English. There's no real danger to our language, but we know what can happen to languages; our discomfort or frustration at dealing with people with an accent or poor English skills is blown up into a cultural invasion.

That's just one element, though. Much more important are selfishness - not wanting to share a beach, a celebration, a country - and waving bright shiny thing to distract us all from the war (whichever one happens to be on at the time).

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