Views from Zobar.
Oct. 7th, 2002 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7** I thought this was such a passionate e-mail that I ought to share it.**
Subj: Nucular weapons and the such.
Date: 10/7/02 8:24:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: zobar@xpcxntxr.nxt
To: pxngxnqx@xxx.cxm
I'm on the White House's website, which informs me with a large graphic
that there will be a webcast tonight at 8.01p. Lovely, but it doesn't
say much more [like, where to go to see it, what software they'll be
using, &c.] So I'm planning on wasting their bandwidth and mine by
reloading the page until that image links to something. Nope, not yet
[7.47p].
In the meantime, some interesting bits about the stank of New Jersey and
the stank of the Right Wing.
They were giving away tickets for an upcoming Bon Jovi concert today to
the first woman who could come into the studio and verify that she is
the penultimate Jersey girl. They were going to determine this by
giving her a quiz [name three malls, which of these actors isn't from
Jersey, &c.] One of the questions was, 'What is that smell?' According
to Q104.3, it's oil refineries.
Then they had on Michael Moore, who's a hard-core lefty, and therefore
almost as irrelevant to me as hard-core righties [almost, because the
righties actually have the power to _do_ stuff, like outlaw Iraq].
Apparently he's got a new film on America's love affair with guns.
Originally, his question was, why do so many Americans have guns?
assuming, as I did, that the number of guns in circulation is directly
related to the number of murders. So he went to Canada to find out what
their lives are like without guns [assuming, as I did, that guns were
more or less illegal in Canada] only to find out that there are 7
million guns in Canada's 11 million households, yet only about 200
murders a year. More investigation turned up that every Swiss household
with a male over 21 is _required_ to have a gun [in case of war, since
there's no standing army], yet their murder rate was 61 last year.
This, I thought was pretty interesting, and is likely to change my views
on gun control [which were pretty muddled to begin with].
So he got an interview with Chareton Heston [who is, by the way, the
NRA], and asked him what he thought about this. [I'd like to interject,
at this point, that I truly and honestly believe that right- and
left-wingers alike are not stupid, misguided, malevolent, or evil; that
they are honestly and sincerely working for, and defending, what they
truly believe to be right and good, and that their views are based on
facts and logical deductions thereof.] To which Charleton Heston
replied, 'I blame racial diversity.'
I was surfing the White House website, and they provided a helpful
timeline of Iraq's evility, named 'A Decade of Defiance.' It detailed
Iraq's infractions against the UN, starting in 1991, skipping 1995, and
continuing all the way through .. uh, 1998. [No mention anywhere of the
Nazis that have been running Germany for the past sixty years.]
Yet a recent Time/CNN poll shows that somewhere around 50% of Americans
support war.
'Taking any bets on whether we'll actually find anything when we get
there?
And my webcast is blinking out. More, perhaps, when I read the
transcript.
- Z.
Subj: Nucular weapons and the such.
Date: 10/7/02 8:24:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: zobar@xpcxntxr.nxt
To: pxngxnqx@xxx.cxm
I'm on the White House's website, which informs me with a large graphic
that there will be a webcast tonight at 8.01p. Lovely, but it doesn't
say much more [like, where to go to see it, what software they'll be
using, &c.] So I'm planning on wasting their bandwidth and mine by
reloading the page until that image links to something. Nope, not yet
[7.47p].
In the meantime, some interesting bits about the stank of New Jersey and
the stank of the Right Wing.
They were giving away tickets for an upcoming Bon Jovi concert today to
the first woman who could come into the studio and verify that she is
the penultimate Jersey girl. They were going to determine this by
giving her a quiz [name three malls, which of these actors isn't from
Jersey, &c.] One of the questions was, 'What is that smell?' According
to Q104.3, it's oil refineries.
Then they had on Michael Moore, who's a hard-core lefty, and therefore
almost as irrelevant to me as hard-core righties [almost, because the
righties actually have the power to _do_ stuff, like outlaw Iraq].
Apparently he's got a new film on America's love affair with guns.
Originally, his question was, why do so many Americans have guns?
assuming, as I did, that the number of guns in circulation is directly
related to the number of murders. So he went to Canada to find out what
their lives are like without guns [assuming, as I did, that guns were
more or less illegal in Canada] only to find out that there are 7
million guns in Canada's 11 million households, yet only about 200
murders a year. More investigation turned up that every Swiss household
with a male over 21 is _required_ to have a gun [in case of war, since
there's no standing army], yet their murder rate was 61 last year.
This, I thought was pretty interesting, and is likely to change my views
on gun control [which were pretty muddled to begin with].
So he got an interview with Chareton Heston [who is, by the way, the
NRA], and asked him what he thought about this. [I'd like to interject,
at this point, that I truly and honestly believe that right- and
left-wingers alike are not stupid, misguided, malevolent, or evil; that
they are honestly and sincerely working for, and defending, what they
truly believe to be right and good, and that their views are based on
facts and logical deductions thereof.] To which Charleton Heston
replied, 'I blame racial diversity.'
I was surfing the White House website, and they provided a helpful
timeline of Iraq's evility, named 'A Decade of Defiance.' It detailed
Iraq's infractions against the UN, starting in 1991, skipping 1995, and
continuing all the way through .. uh, 1998. [No mention anywhere of the
Nazis that have been running Germany for the past sixty years.]
Yet a recent Time/CNN poll shows that somewhere around 50% of Americans
support war.
'Taking any bets on whether we'll actually find anything when we get
there?
And my webcast is blinking out. More, perhaps, when I read the
transcript.
- Z.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
I don't know if Zobar reads this
Date: 2002-10-07 07:38 pm (UTC)As someone a bit more familiar with Michael Moore, I think it's a mistake to label him a "hard-core lefty."
He is a populist, and a Green-party supporter, I'll grant that. But he's first and foremost an investigative reporter, and also a very skilled documentarian. When his new movie (http://bowlingforcolumbine.com) screened at Cannes, it got the longest standing ovation in the festival's history.
Since you do seem interested, I hope you do see the movie. While you're at it, his previous films are Roger and Me and The Big One, both of them funny and informative.
Oh, and he's got a new book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060392452/ref%3Dnosim/dogeatdogfilms/104-3415214-3936750) out too.
Re: I don't know if Zobar reads this
Date: 2002-10-07 09:29 pm (UTC)Hee. Always with the links.
I myself saw an article about the movie, and thought You know, that'd be lots of fun to watch. ^.^