Stepping into the Twilight Zone

So I've been re-watching The Twilight Zone on Netflix. I loved that show when I was a teenager. It was on Channel 11 from New York (11N on my cable system at the time) right after Star Trek. So I watched it a lot, because, insomnia. Anyway, I've only watched up to episode 4 of Season 2, but I've had some interesting observations.

It's so strange how the world changes. S1 Ep7 is called "Lonely." It's about a prisoner sent into solitary on some asteroid (in the 1950s, all asteroids are exactly like earth). He's so lonely that one supply guy smuggles him in a girl-bot. Girl-bot, who is called Alicia, is supposedly identical to a human woman. Which, well, they pretty much treat women like girl-bots on the show, so I guess maybe she is. But then Supply Guy comes back years later, to tell Prisoner Guy that solitary on asteroids has been outlawed as cruel and unusual. They're taking him back to Earth. But oops. Supply guy forgot about Alicia. They can't fit that much extra weight on the rocket ship home! Prisoner Guy gets mad. Alicia cries. Supply guy also gets mad, and shoots Alicia. Problem solved. Um, what?? Prisoner Guy is upset, but he just sort of shrugs it off and goes home. WTF is the "moral" of this story??

The next episode (S1 Ep8), "Time Enough at Last," is one I really liked when I first saw it. You know, the one where Burgess Meredith is reading in a bank vault when "the bombs" go off. He's the last guy on Earth, and he's finally going to have a chance to get some reading done, but he breaks his glasses. First off, his wife is some kind of Sadist. They don't bother to make her seem a person with human motivations. She just wants to go over and play cards with the neighbors, so she viciously, gleefully scribbles out the text in his book with a fat black marker. The hell? She couldn't just throw it away. Oh, no. She even put it back in his hiding place under the chair cushion so she could see the horror on his face when he found it defaced. Because that's how a person would act, right? My biggest question with this episode, though, was might there not be a drug store or optician somewhere that has an undamaged pair of glasses he could use? Or a magnifying glass. That would have been an "oh hell, that figures" moment for me, rather than "this is even worse than the end of civilization!"

Re-watching S1 Ep15, "I Shot an Arrow into the Air," was so much different than watching it for the first time. As a kid, I just took it on face value and nodded. But now, it has me going WTF? So 8 guys take off in a rocket (they're always rockets in the 1950s), and they have a malfunction. They crash land somewhere, and half of them are dead. A fifth guy is dying. One of the other three guys gets mad when the Captain keeps giving Dying Guy water. They've landed in a desert, and the non-dying people are going to need the water, Mad Guy insists. Dying Guy dies while they're arguing about it. So now the three still alive are looking around, assessing their situation. They have no idea where they are. All they can see is rocky-hill type desert in every direction. One of them helpfully suggests that the sun is the same size as it is on Earth, and the Captain says that oh, that must mean we're on an asteroid in the same orbit as Earth. Seriously?? The same orbit? With the same atmosphere and gravity? And you come up with asteroid?  Oh yeah. All asteroids are exactly like earth. I forgot. Anyway, the Captain sends out Third Guy and Mad Guy to look for anything that isn't rocky desert. Mad Guy comes back alone with Third Guy's water. Captain wrings it out of Mad Guy that Third Guy died "while they were separated." Captain doesn't believe him, and insists on seeing Third Guy's body. So they trek over to where it was, but Third Guy is gone. They find him a little way up a nearby slope. Third Guy is dying, but points uphill and draws ╪ in the dust before he dies. Captain starts walking up the hill, and Mad Guy kills him. Mad Guy climbs up the hill and see a road with telephone poles. Because oh, wait, asteroids are NOT just like earth. You're on Earth you stupid assholes! WTF are these people even doing in space?

This show is bizarre to me in a way it was not meant to be. I still like it, but damn. Women are evil shrews like Burgess Meredith's wife, plastic airheads who needed to be patted on the back, and generally non-persons. And people most definitely do not think they are living in The Good Old Days, much as the Religious Reich would like us to believe they were. The Old Days are so un-good, that people in the Twilight Zone are desperate to escape them. These people think their lives are over complicated, and too "modern" with too much technology. They live in fear of another war. They long to escape modern life for "The Good Old Days," which to them was back in the 18-somethings when every boy was Huck Finn. (See S1 Ep.30 "A Stop at Willoughby.) Technology is out to get them (See S1 Ep.17, "The Fever" where a man falls victim to a possessed slot machine, and S2 Ep. 4 "The Thing About Machines" where every piece of tech in a guy's house is trying to kill him and/or drive him insane.)

Women as non-persons is best demonstrated by S1 Ep. 36, "World of His Own." Playwright Guy is snuggling in his writing room with a woman who calls him "Master" (no, really), and seems to exist to serve him drinks and cuddles. His wife comes home early and sees them through the front window. When she comes in to confront them, Playwright Guy is alone. They argue, and eventually he tells her that Cuddle Woman (Mary) is not real. He wrote her into existence by dictating into his tape machine thing. Wife (Victoria) tries to leave, so he dictates an angry elephant in the front hall, trapping her there. Finally he badgers Victoria into staying so she can meet Mary. Mary gushes, sniffles, and asks him not to bring her back again if they can't be together. He sends Mary away, because Victoria is his wife, after all. He explains to Victoria that she was just too perfect, and made him feel inadequate. So he created Mary, who didn't. (Apparently Victoria reminded him too much of a human being.) Victoria is still mad (shock!), so Playwright Guy waggles an admonishing finger and goes to the safe. He shows Victoria an envelope with her name on it and says that he invented her, too. Vic doesn't believe him, and throws her envelope into the fireplace. And then disappears. So he starts to write her back, and then decides, oh wait, never mind. And writes in Mary as his new wife. WTF?! And no one is going to notice that suddenly he has a fawning blonde wife called Mary, or wonder where dark-haired Victoria went? Apparently not. Women are perfectly interchangeable, after all. It's not like they're people. That whole episode was just sickening. But it has great reviews on IMDb, so I guess someone likes the idea of writing away your horrible selfish wife and writing in a worshipful airhead who calls you Master.

Another Thought of the Day

Or two thoughts, maybe. The first is that I broke my right pinkie nail down where it hurts if you break it. So ow. Typing is fun. I glued it back together with a silk nail wrap and some acrylic nail powder. So it should hold a while, as long as I don't type too much on it.

The second thought is about Things That Happened before I Was Alive. It seems to me that when someone challenges, say, religious text on the money, in public buildings, on license plates, or what have you, the stock answer is a variation on "well, it's been there a long time, and no one has complained before." Lovely. I wasn't alive to complain before. I'm alive now, and I'm not happy with it now. You don't see the same "well no one complained before" response when black people complain about the Confederate flag flying over the court house. Well, ok, you do, but no one takes the person saying it seriously. So what's up with that?

Which brings me to... I have to wonder if this country is irreparably divided. It becomes clearer to me every day that the kind of country the Evangelical, religious right wants to live in is not the kind of country I want to live in. My vision of the future looks like the United Federation of Planets. Theirs looks like a cross between medieval serfdom, Leave It to Beaver, and Little House on the Prairie. So hell. Oh, the books I need to write if I can ever concentrate long enough to get them out of my head...

It's that time of year.

It's Memorial Day Weekend. Rather than honoring veterans, it's clearly time for I'm Way More Americaner Than Y'all Are

For the record: No, this is NOT one nation under the magic sky fairy, and no, I will not repost, retweet or forward any sentiments saying that it is. If that disqualifies me from being "a real American" in your eyes, then fuck you. And fyi, the "under god" bit is 100% incompatible with the VERY NEXT WORD, indivisible. The word "god" divides us by its very nature. Also, fuck you again.

I suck at this.

Damn, I suck at keeping up posting on here, don't I? I guess I just haven't had much to say, and I'm still going through tons of crap offline.

Anyway, I'm on here today, because of little Camden Pierce Hughes. This kid was 6 years old. His mother suffocated him in New Hampshire, drove to Maine and dumped the body, and was eventually arrested at a rest area in Massachusetts. Back in Texas, where they lived, the mother's ex-boyfriend had this to say (You know where this is going already, don't you?):

’’I’m the only daddy [Camden] has ever had,’’ Miller said. ’’Her and I and [Camden] had a very strong faith in Christ. That’s why I know he’s in a better place, and I’m glad he’s there.’’

Say what????!!!! "I’m glad he’s there." ??? WTF, Chuck? How can anyone say something like that? He's glad the kid is dead?  Glad??? Seriously??? And whoop-dee-frickin-doo if Mommy had a "very strong faith in Christ." It didn't stop her from murdering her little boy, now did it? I don't even.... Unreal.

Anyway, the story is here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/05/state_police_qu.html

Long time, no see

Wow, I haven't had anything to really write about in over a month! I hadn't realized it had been that long. I've mostly been busy with the house stuff (cleaning, repair, refinancing, new insurance, blah, blah, blah, endless mess). Plus I've had a lot going on as far as working on the bath & body company, and doing some 3d work. all at once. I hate busy, but there you go.

Anyway, I was wondering about something just now. Did you ever notice, that religious people often charge atheists with  providing "something to replace religion" in people's lives? Why is that? Really? I can't even count the number of times that I've heard statements like "well, if you're going to take away people's religion, then you have to give them something to replace it." Why do I have to do that? For one thing, I'm not "taking" anyone's religion, any more than I would be "taking" someone's imaginary six foot rabbit away by saying I can't see it. If they suddenly realize "holy crap, it's not there!" does that mean I took it? And do I have to go to Toys R Us to get the a stuffed bunny now? Wait, Harvey was alive! Does that mean I need to replace him with a pet rabbit, then? Oh, boy.

Seriously. If CBS tells Charlie Sheen to go to rehab, and he comes out drug free, does that mean CBS is responsible for finding him a replacement for his drugs?

It's not like I even understand completely what they're "losing" by not having church. Church, to me, is sitting in uncomfortable seats in a huge room full of expensive windows, and listening to cherry-picked stories with questionable moral value. It also entails getting up early on Sunday (Saturday for SDAs), buying clothes that I would never wear to anything other than church, and way too many strangers touching me.  What would I give them to replace that? How about staying home in your pajamas, sitting in bed or a comfy chair, and watching old episodes of "Aesop and Son" from The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show? Seems like a huge improvement to me.

Thought of the Day

When vampires drink blood, we call it a horror movie. When humans drink blood, we call it church.

What they don't get

Do places even have the slightest clue that "a portion of all purchases goes to Christian charities" is not a universally good thing? I was just doing some online clothes shopping. I clicked a link, and the site's main page had a big announcement in their rotating banner saying that very thing. I didn't even bother to look at the clothes. Buh-bye. Frankly, I would prefer that any charity money coming from me would go to actually helping people, rather than handing out Bibles or communion wafers.

Do they think Muslims and Jews want to be supporting their Christian charities? Really?