Sevens.
Sunday 7.
Name seven things -- fads, controversies, beliefs, institutions, whatever -- that you just don't "get."
1. Christianity, especially the fundies who can't tell the difference between a belief or a fact [or don't care].
2. 9o% of what's on the radio. I mean, really. WTF? How can I have any respect for my species when they'll willingly sit there and listen to the same song 3 times in 6 hours, and not change the station? I mean, obviously the station doesn't have any respect for them. Also, why do people prefer retarded music? Why is this stuff popular, why do people call up and request stuff that's been available to buy for 40 years, why do the stations play the same thing over and over, and why do people put up with it--in fact, lap it up? I don't get it. At all.
3. Pagans who believe the whole Margaret Murray bullshit, decades after it's been disproven. They keep referring to the Burning Times as some terrible holocaust of witches, when no records have been found that indicate either such a widespread practice of witchcraft or a monumental-scale witch hunt. Look, folks, even the Nazis couldn't destroy enough evidence to prevent people from finding out about the Holocaust. Not only that, if witchcraft had been practiced that much by that many peope, it probably would've gone one of two ways: 1] they preserved the traditions in books, which is why there are no more variations of it than there are today, in which case some books would've been found; or 2] they were illiterate or, like the Druids, didn't keep books, and infinite variations would have proliferated in all the isolated pockets of Europe. If people were practicing witchcraft in large numbers for 2000 years, or even for the 1000-1500 years until the persecution started, it would have evolved at least as much as Christianity has in that time, and probably more because of the lack of sacred texts. You can point back to the Druids or the Native American medicine men and say they had unbroken traditions, but you have no way of knowing how much those traditions changed as they were passed down.
There's no purpose for this story now except to promote anti-Christian bigotry, and the fundies do a good job of that all on their own without our having to cling to persecution fables like little hate-stuffed teddy bears.
4. Chain e-mails and e-mail petitions. I don't understand why anybody believes in these things, unless they totally have no idea how e-mail works. I just now had to send somebody a rude e-mail about this because the times I asked nicely [I clearly recall asking at least once, and I'm pretty sure I asked 2 or 3 times], they didn't listen. It was a friend, too, which is why I gave them more than one chance instead of banning their e-mail address right away.
5. Anybody who still believes there were WMD's in Iraq. The less evidence there is to support it, the more people believe in it. Is it really that much easier to fool yourself into believing something than it is to deal with disillusionment? I mean, I have some goofy beliefs myself, but at least I'm honest about the fact that they might not be true; and I try to be prepared for the possibility that they may be conclusively disproven. Not only that, there's a difference between believing in ghosts [which are very hard to detect even under good conditions] and believing in giant hoards of biological weapons [which, without exception, have a tangible, reliably detectable existence in the physical universe].
6. The big hype over celebrity weddings, breakups, and reproduction. If I actually cared about any of these celebrities, I might feel different. It is sorta interesting to hear when your favourite actor or musician or whatever gets married or has a kid. For me, though, that always ends up relating back to their work, which is what made me a fan in the first place. Either it gets me wondering if their next album is going to contain references to it, or it helps explain recent works. Beck's Sea Change makes a little more sense if you know he'd just broken up with his longtime girlfriend, and the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore makes tons more sense if you know about Melvoin's OD, Jimmy's expulsion from the band, and Billy's divorce and his mom's death. Frida Kahlo's artwork takes on additional meaning when you know about her accident and all her surgeries and back braces and incisions that wouldn't heal and so on. So I'm interested in their personal lives to the extent that it gives me a deeper appreciation of the work they put out. Other than that, it's none of my business. So I don't understand people who pound out one message board post after another on Bennifer, or the magazines having 2 and 3 issues in a row whose cover stories are devoted to the Brangelina love triangle and the kid. Very seldom have I understood a movie better by knowing anything about the actors.
7. Mimes.
Well, that took long enough. Between that, breakfast, a lengthy online conversation, and the penning of a suitably nasty e-mail to the aforementioned e-petitioning f[r]iend, I've managed to squander about 3 hours. And I have a stomachache from eating too much. That's anger, sloth, and gluttony, so that averages about one deadly sin per hour. So if I watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, drool over Daniel Radcliffe, get jealous of Emma Watson for getting to star in a movie with him, grumble over all the money they have that I don't, and then brag about it all--I'll have all seven in one day!
Although I could never be as efficient as this. [It took an hour to find that. More sloth!]
sbt/sbc
Name seven things -- fads, controversies, beliefs, institutions, whatever -- that you just don't "get."
1. Christianity, especially the fundies who can't tell the difference between a belief or a fact [or don't care].
2. 9o% of what's on the radio. I mean, really. WTF? How can I have any respect for my species when they'll willingly sit there and listen to the same song 3 times in 6 hours, and not change the station? I mean, obviously the station doesn't have any respect for them. Also, why do people prefer retarded music? Why is this stuff popular, why do people call up and request stuff that's been available to buy for 40 years, why do the stations play the same thing over and over, and why do people put up with it--in fact, lap it up? I don't get it. At all.
3. Pagans who believe the whole Margaret Murray bullshit, decades after it's been disproven. They keep referring to the Burning Times as some terrible holocaust of witches, when no records have been found that indicate either such a widespread practice of witchcraft or a monumental-scale witch hunt. Look, folks, even the Nazis couldn't destroy enough evidence to prevent people from finding out about the Holocaust. Not only that, if witchcraft had been practiced that much by that many peope, it probably would've gone one of two ways: 1] they preserved the traditions in books, which is why there are no more variations of it than there are today, in which case some books would've been found; or 2] they were illiterate or, like the Druids, didn't keep books, and infinite variations would have proliferated in all the isolated pockets of Europe. If people were practicing witchcraft in large numbers for 2000 years, or even for the 1000-1500 years until the persecution started, it would have evolved at least as much as Christianity has in that time, and probably more because of the lack of sacred texts. You can point back to the Druids or the Native American medicine men and say they had unbroken traditions, but you have no way of knowing how much those traditions changed as they were passed down.
There's no purpose for this story now except to promote anti-Christian bigotry, and the fundies do a good job of that all on their own without our having to cling to persecution fables like little hate-stuffed teddy bears.
4. Chain e-mails and e-mail petitions. I don't understand why anybody believes in these things, unless they totally have no idea how e-mail works. I just now had to send somebody a rude e-mail about this because the times I asked nicely [I clearly recall asking at least once, and I'm pretty sure I asked 2 or 3 times], they didn't listen. It was a friend, too, which is why I gave them more than one chance instead of banning their e-mail address right away.
5. Anybody who still believes there were WMD's in Iraq. The less evidence there is to support it, the more people believe in it. Is it really that much easier to fool yourself into believing something than it is to deal with disillusionment? I mean, I have some goofy beliefs myself, but at least I'm honest about the fact that they might not be true; and I try to be prepared for the possibility that they may be conclusively disproven. Not only that, there's a difference between believing in ghosts [which are very hard to detect even under good conditions] and believing in giant hoards of biological weapons [which, without exception, have a tangible, reliably detectable existence in the physical universe].
6. The big hype over celebrity weddings, breakups, and reproduction. If I actually cared about any of these celebrities, I might feel different. It is sorta interesting to hear when your favourite actor or musician or whatever gets married or has a kid. For me, though, that always ends up relating back to their work, which is what made me a fan in the first place. Either it gets me wondering if their next album is going to contain references to it, or it helps explain recent works. Beck's Sea Change makes a little more sense if you know he'd just broken up with his longtime girlfriend, and the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore makes tons more sense if you know about Melvoin's OD, Jimmy's expulsion from the band, and Billy's divorce and his mom's death. Frida Kahlo's artwork takes on additional meaning when you know about her accident and all her surgeries and back braces and incisions that wouldn't heal and so on. So I'm interested in their personal lives to the extent that it gives me a deeper appreciation of the work they put out. Other than that, it's none of my business. So I don't understand people who pound out one message board post after another on Bennifer, or the magazines having 2 and 3 issues in a row whose cover stories are devoted to the Brangelina love triangle and the kid. Very seldom have I understood a movie better by knowing anything about the actors.
7. Mimes.
Well, that took long enough. Between that, breakfast, a lengthy online conversation, and the penning of a suitably nasty e-mail to the aforementioned e-petitioning f[r]iend, I've managed to squander about 3 hours. And I have a stomachache from eating too much. That's anger, sloth, and gluttony, so that averages about one deadly sin per hour. So if I watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, drool over Daniel Radcliffe, get jealous of Emma Watson for getting to star in a movie with him, grumble over all the money they have that I don't, and then brag about it all--I'll have all seven in one day!
Although I could never be as efficient as this. [It took an hour to find that. More sloth!]
sbt/sbc
posted by Frida | 11:05 PM
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