“Pledging Independence From Ignorance”

July 4, 2012 By 2 Comments

Wrote this in my Notes app on my phone at 3 in the morning. I watched a Vice video about blowing up mountaintops to extract coal minutes before. It made me question why we fight for some lives but not others. Our righteousness is rags – that’s something I learned in a fundamentalist church and still believe.

Stupidity reigns supreme in the 21st century
When sheep lead sheep toward rising seas
You mean to tell me, pastor
God cares more about sodomy
Than how we treat the least of these
Seems your gospel is the devil’s creed
You mean it’s kosher to turn God’s creation to feces
In the name of corporate greed, a false deity enslaving many
Why fight for the unborn’s heartbeat
If we’re content to let them enter a world of unchecked atrocity
They will forgive us one day, maybe
Long after a woman has total control over her body
And sexual preference is not prerequisite to marry
And people realize their true meaning (to love)
That is my hope, at least

Filed Under: Musings, Poetry, Portland Tagged With: , , ,

8 Minutes With HBO’s The Newsroom

July 4, 2012 By 3 Comments

Jeff Daniels, star of HBO's The Newsroom

NOTE: I’ve had a few journalist friends share their thoughts with me about HBO’s new drama The Newsroom. Frankly, I was too angry to write about it. I’ve cooled down sufficiently, I think. Maybe not. You be the judge.

Dan Rather, you senile bastard.

You recommended The Newsroom. Did you watch any of the show? I watched eight minutes, and I know what I saw wasn’t something I would recommend. Did you assume because the show was set in a TV newsroom it captured some greater truth about our dying industry, and as such you would co-sign on the project? Seriously. What. The. Fuck?!?!?

This is not an angry letter to Dan Rather via my blog. I promise.

It’s more a hate screed about The Newsroom, a show to which I devoted eight minutes of my life. Yes, one day I will write a memoir (that’s a definite maybe on the to-do list). When I do, I will devote at least one sentence to how incensed I became after watching eight minutes – or perhaps nine – of celeb screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s creme de la crap TV news drama about a Keith Olbermann-type character who attempts to shine light onto a nation of ignoramuses.

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Filed Under: Breaking Bad, Musings, Television Tagged With: , , , ,