Absolute Sincerity

April 21, 2009

I keep thinking I will someday be able to overcome the fact that the world is full of bloody hypocrites, especially where morality is concerned. But I just keep coming up with new gripes.


I don't have much to say, except that I was speaking to someone about the supposed controversial comments by Miss California in the recent Miss America Beauty Pageant. I performed a Google news search just to check it out, and lo and behold, right on Fox News.com, I see a picture of a hot babe in a swimsuit.

Apparently there was a story. I am sure she was Miss California. Supposedly she lost because she thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman. For some reason, I wasn't really interested in reading.

Snap! Sorry - I got a little sidetracked. So let me get this straight. Someone enters into a pageant where the only real reason anyone pays attention is to look at hot chicks in bathing suits, and then she is a hero because she thinks gay marriage is wrong? Does anyone see the glaring contradiction here?

I know I am being incredibly cynical here, but I am not backing down on this one. People who rail on gay marriage (and I'm not saying it's wrong or right - it's not the issue here), saying it is going to cause the disintegration of society, are probably many of the same people who watch scantily clad women in bikinis on TV, drooling, and trying to find rerun videos on YouTube after the pageant ends because they haven't fantasized enough.

The Miss America Pageant is nothing but a way to make women objects. And if we're going to make moral judgments, then the pageant has to be just as immoral as two people of the same sex wanting to form a union together. I guess what it comes down to is there are not that many gay people out there, compared to the big business out there geared toward the number of people who will spend their time and money to look at swimsuit models strutting their stuff, and then acting like they watch to see what the hell said models think about world poverty.

Let me put it another way: when you prance around practically naked in a swimsuit (if you can call it that), you probably don't have much room to talk about your opinion on morality.

Such hypocrisy has the potential to make one ill.

Update: (4/22/09) Well, what do you know, a woman (Caroline Heldman) who agrees with me. Of course, pervert Sean Hannity and his two male guests want the controversy to go on as long as possible, so they can continue to show pictures of babes in bikinis as much as possible. Of course, these "manly" men more than likely feel they are superior to Heldman just because they are men.

Her argument is just too much for them to handle. The pageant is degrading to women. So what? They're hot, and Hannity wants to watch them.

Tax Day Tomfoolery

April 15, 2009

Finally it is here! Tax day! What does it all mean? Well, really for me, nothing. However, there are some significant occurrences going on around the country. I hate to draw attention to the foolishness of some radical conservatives out there, but today is the day where Fox News utterly and unabashedly abandons any claim they may have had to being "fair and balanced."

In several areas of the country, conservatives are gathering to protest tax increases, and government expansion. Really, these rallies will be nothing more than anti-Obama demonstrations. And Fox News has gone out of its way to promote it all the way. The irony is that millionaires and billionaires are organizing the events, making them look like the "parties" are a spontaneous grassroots phenomenon. In the end, the rich are just trying to incite the people, draw attention to something inconsequential, and grow richer as a result.

But enough about taxes. Let's go for a much more global view of matters. I understand the supposedly logical viewpoints that support less taxes and less government. Theoretically, it would be awesome to have government pretty much out of our lives. Compulsory charity is not the best way to provide for those in need, for sure.

However, the facts are undeniable: over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. The poorest 40 percent of people account for 5 percent of global income, while the richest 20 percent account for more than 75 percent of global income. One in two children lives in poverty. 1.6 billion people live without electricity.

The stats go on and on. The point? The wealthy (and most people in the United States, even poor college students like myself, are wealthy relative to people in other parts of the world) continue to take more and more of the goods. While technology and means to distribute basic goods to those in poverty continue to improve, it seems the number of poor people continues to expand.

Even if we can't save all the poor in the world, how do we justify the number of poor, starving, adults and children, in the wealthiest nation ever to exist on earth?

I am not going to be the one who says capitalism is a terrible system, but it has its flaws, and I think saying "it's absolutely the best system hands-down" is probably a stretch. As a Mormon, reading in the Doctrine and Covenants about the United Order and Law of Consecration, it is hard to read and imagine that God's way is just naked, free-market capitalism.

From section 104:

15 And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.

16 But it must needs be done in mine own ^away; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the ^bpoor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.

17 For the ^aearth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be ^bagents unto themselves.

18 Therefore, if any man shall take of the ^aabundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the ^blaw of my gospel, unto the ^cpoor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in ^dhell, being in torment.

Sounds like the rich who are selfish with their wealth possibly may find themselves in the same place as the rapists, murderers, and sexual predators of the world, but who knows. Either way, if one studies the Law of Consecration (and no doubt we fail to live it today because we are just as selfish as the Saints who first received the law), there is no doubt that the gap between the CEO of such-and-such company and the person who works at the laundromat for five dollars an hour would not be nearly as wide as the gap surely is today.

I don't want to hear, "if the government didn't take so much of my money, I would be more charitable." That's bogus. Before you start using that argument, start counting the number of cars, televisions, DVD's, iPods, computers, etc. that you have. Not to mention the endless amount of junk sitting in boxes in the garage that hasn't seen daylight since the 1980's. Although it is not wrong for people to have relative comfort in their lives, there is no doubt that most of the interest we have in possessions is merely modern day idol worship.

So the tax-day tea-baggers can participate in their rediculous shenanigans, and people can keep quoting platitudes like, "give a man a fish, feed him for a day," and the government can at least continue trying to do what the rich of the world simply refuse to do: allow those who wouldn't otherwise have a chance to have some semblance of a respectable life for themselves, and for the generations that follow.

And while it may not be quite as lamentable as starving humans, Fox News will continue to claim it is fair and balanced, and a lot of people will probably still believe it.

Fox News Porn

March 15, 2009

It warms my heart to know so many people watch Fox News, mostly because it's "fair and balanced," especially when these moral folks are supporting the garbage they put on there. I lost the little respect I had for Bill O'Reilly when he did several segments years back about Carl's Jr.'s commercial with Paris Hilton all soaped up and nearly nude, doing a car wash. It was one of the most hypocritical expositions I've ever seen. O'Reilly bloviated about angry parents whose kids could have been exposed to such filth, since the commercials were on at such an early hour. And here he was, on a show that airs at 6 p.m. MST, repeatedly showing clips of the practically naked Hilton.

The current issue is with Fox News reporting on the violence happening in Mexico and the threat to college students who want to go there for spring break. So, naturally (any clear-thinking person would do the same), the segments airing on "The O'Reilly Factor," whatever Hannity calls his show now, and "On the Record" with Greta, were teased with dozens of pictures of buxom women in bikinis dancing around, partying, and drinking beer. When these "fair and balanced" anchors reported on the story, as well as discussed the issues with their guests, naturally, they again repeatedly aired the soft-pornographic material. And why not? You can't talk about the story without showing scantily clad women. It just wouldn't work out.

I certainly will not embed the video, since it is so disgusting, but I couldn't help but comment about another example of how Fox News is so often trash television - the likes of which I would expect to see more from MTV or E!

Bravo. Keep watching, because it's definitely more fun to get informed on the issues while women in bikinis are giving you repeated encouragement. Only a serious news channel would cover stories with such class and conservatism.

Not surprisingly, Jon Stewart picked up on "bad habit" Fox has sometimes exhibited in a clip in 2006, and though I felt it would be wrong to have such inappropriate content posted on such a wholesome website like mine, I suddenly remembered this was coverage by Fox News. So what is there to worry about?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Intro - Manhunt

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Don't these people realize how they undermine themselves and their imagined "moral" position? Bill O'Reilly has branded himself as a "Culture Warrior." He and his colleagues at Fox are devoted to telling people what is moral and immoral: gays, sex education, abortion, Brittany Spears, etc. When they show this garbage on their shows, how can one take them seriously when they act like they have any authority in moral matters? They are a joke, and I think Bill O'Reilly showing footage like this in prime time is probably more harmful to society than a couple of gay people getting married in California. But people will keep watching him tell us morality is under attack, somehow oblivious to the overt display of hypocrisy, all the while undermining their own "moral" positions.

I've happened upon one of the little secrets on the issue. The following was published in the current issue of "The Week" magazine:

The porn paradox
Guess which states are most interested in online pornography? That’s right—those with the highest concentrations of politically conservative and traditionally religious people. Of the top 10 porn-buying states in the nation, says a new Harvard University study, eight voted Republican in the last presidential election. In states in which laws have been passed banning gay marriage, subscription rates to porn sites are 11 percent greater than in states without gay-marriage bans. In Utah, most people agreed with the statement, “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage.” Yet Utah boasts the highest porn-buying rate in the entire nation. Why are people in “red” states more likely to indulge in online porn? Perhaps they’re simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by sexuality, study author Benjamin Edelman tells New Scientist. “One natural hypothesis is something like repression: If you’re told you can’t have this, then you want it more.”

So while they point fingers and condemn society for its moral depravity, maybe a simple answer for why this junk is on a "news" channel is that people who watch Fox News like it.