The Uncool War

Is the war simply not hip anymore? I ask this question in all seriousness. I want to know. Is the idea that thousands of women and men, Canadian and American, are still overseas and engaged in active combat just not very interesting? Did we win or something?

The fact that one can watch virtually a nightly news broadcast on any network these days without hearing a soundbyte about Iraq (and often Afghanistan too) is a disgrace. It's like the viewers, and by extension the reporters, just decided one day that any war news was boring. "Let's go cover Heath Ledger instead," said the mainstream media.

Hell, even Al-Jazeera doesn't have a headlining story on Iraq on its website.

The U.S. Election (still ten months away people) takes up so much talk that no-one even seems to remember why it's so important. It's the War, stupid. Neither Obama nor Clinton has yet to offer anything concrete on how exactly they intend to "bring the troops home." McCain and Romney on the other hand, can't wait to send more soldiers over to Iraq, and probably Iran, Syria and Pakistan too.

It's not like the war is over. Last year was the bloodiest year yet for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Add to that the nearly two thousand civilians killed in combat and ten times that figure over in Iraq. Throw in nine hundred U.S. troops and thirty Canadian troops and you've got anything but "mission accomplished". That's just 2007. We've been at it for five years in Iraq and seven in Afghanistan. My little cousin just turned three. We've got an entire generation coming of age that doesn't know what the world looks like without Iraqi insurgents and Taliban militia. That offends me.

The fickle protest community, with its earnest sociology students and neo-vegan hippies, has already moved on. Now they're all about carbon dioxide and Darfur. Next it'll probably be testing on rabbits and civilians in Burma.

Look, I know it's difficult and boring and we've all been hearing about this war forever now. The images are never easy, the stories always depressing. We students have it rough already. Who needs to hear about a 7 year-old girl getting machine-gunned to death (happened Monday in Diyala)? We've got enough things to worry about like exams, jobs, loan debts, relationships, Facebook requests...

I also understand that the news business these days is in the middle of a kind of revolution it hasn't seen since the invention of television. This internet generation is abandoning print and television and turning to strange and unprofitable things like the blogosphere and podcasts. Websites with funny names like Fark, Digg, del.icio.us and Technorati compete with the BBC and The New York Times. Classified ads are losing out to the new school of Craigslist and Kijiji. Times are rough and covering wars is expensive.

But these are all pitiful excuses in the face of what's truly important. Let's not lose sight of that fact. No matter how many young actors overdose and pop stars get locked up in mental hospitals, or even if the islanders from "Lost" get rescued by the Mexican Navy, we ought to keep a simple thought in the back of our media-saturated brains:

People are dying. For us. For this country.

Whether you support their mission or not, or whether you care or not is irrelevant. The fact remains they deserve your consideration anyway. More so than a dumb smog monster anyway.

=//Turnquest

My Love

Today I present a loving ode in pictures of a hero and an icon of leadership, His Excellency, the President of Iran:

Yeah, I think I see the pony...

That's right, four cups! And don't forget the Sweet-n-Low!


Maybe I should've gone with the root beer, instead.

Sorry guys, I'd love to chat, but I promised to take the wife n' kids to Dairy Queen.

You mean I can't keep them?

"Yes, yes, everlasting peace ..." (That beard would go to waste...I wonder if I could make a sweater of it.)

=//Turnquest

200th Post

This is it. Fookpop has reached its 200th post.

I reached my 100th post back on April 24th of '06, or nearly three months shy of two damn years ago. 'Course, that was when I was posting pretty much every day. The blog itself is already two years old.

Sometimes I suprise myself with my own consistency. I, for one, thought to myself back then posting up lists of news links that no-one clicked on wouldn't be sustainable; that this blog would fall by the wayside like so many other of my pet projects.

Well, as I said, sometimes I surprise myself.

Why keep it going for 2 years and 200 posts?

Boredom.

Nono, bad joke.

The reason (warning, sincerity ahead) is that inside of me there is a voice that screams to be heard. It screams out things I wish my throat would have the courage and ability to articulate. I cannot say what I think accurately. So I write.

One writes not for pleasure, nor for self-gain, nor for profit or for fame. The choice to write does not belong to him or her. In fact, it is not a choice at all. One writes out of necessity and by compulsion of forces outside of his or her control.

One writes because one must.

Anyway, here's a grab-bag brick-a-braq of shit that's been banging around in my skull that I want to mention.

1 - Cellphone companies are the devil. Mobile communication is not just a luxury or tool for busy office workers. It is the standard method of communication for the majority of Canadians, and the exclusive method for millions of people as well. For the under-30 generation, cellphones are more accepted than landlines.

The monopoly on mobile communication ought to wrenched out of their greedy, usurous fists and given to the public.

2 - Public education is broken. Thousands upon thousands of teenagers are receiving high school diplomas, D.E.C.s and higher-education degrees without basic fundamental knowledge, reason or common sense. Ask your average Concordia student who was the first prime minister of Canada. What about when World War II started? Anyone care to guess who shot J.F.K? What the benefits and risks of buying a house are? The degrees in Farenheit that water freezes at? How about the proper way to write a CV?

These are questions your average, well-heeled sixth grader could answer, but not the illiterate, anti-social, obsessive-compulsive nitwits polluting the halls of our higher education institutions.

We ought to force general knowledge quizzes on everyone randomly once a semester. Failure forces you to take a high school level course teaching you shit you should know already. The course would be worth zero credits and only allow you to continue your worthless uneducated existence in our school.

Or maybe we should just execute the louder, dumber students randomly.

3 - Animal rights people, vegans, PETA, all that liberal shit that gives conservatives endless ammunition to call people who believe in universal health care and reasonable social safety nets "dirty hippies." You dirty PETA hippies have sworn your life to defending animals. Animals. ANIMALS? FOR GOD'S SAKE. I can't even continue without my b.p. rising to fatal levels.

4 - Suicides, depression, pharmaceutical abuse and drug usage in general is increasing. People are medicating themselves to death or chronic despair. Do you even know what death is? Do you care?

5 - I say it often, but not often enough. You know, while you're out partying every weekend, tossing shots back down at the pub, stressing about your girlfriend changing her Facebook status, complaining about what to wear for your date, trying to figure out how your cellphone works, what to buy for Valentine's Day and deciding who's hotter, Jessica Alba or Megan Fox,

THERE IS A WAR GOING ON.

Iraqis are dying. American soldiers are dying. Canadian soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. Hundreds of Kenyans are dying in brutal fashion (but that's another story, for another time). Pakistan is going up in flames. The world is more ridiculously violent and crazy than ever before. Not to mention that billions upon billions of dollars are being squandered in the stock market, by banks making bad loans and by stupid consumers buying up every new gadget and clothing item they can find. Students are racking up thousands of dollars of debt. People with graduate degrees can't find jobs. Children are still going to school hungry here in Quebec. Climate change is giving us a schizophrenic and dangerous winter. The government is spying on your e-mail. Music sucks. Election '08.

But whatever, news is depressing, yo. Put on "Lost."

* * *

It's late. I disavow everything I typed here. Forget it. You'll sleep better. Good night.

=//Turnquest

How Appropriate

Isn't it great how this is just more proof of how like Christianity (both Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism) has been infected with child molestors, rapists and all-together wackos? Of course, you have to remember that Utah is Mormon-country (read Mitt Romney). Isn't it great how all they can pin on us Muslims is that we uh...

beatourwomenoppressourpeoplekillcivilianshateJewscensorourpressactlikedicksinpublic

*call us terrorists?

Yeah:

"Clean" Movie Maven Arrested For Teen Sex

Utah Man Who Sold R-Rated Films Shorn of Skin Arrested For Sex With 14-Year-Old Girls

A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs - Hollywood films with the "dirty parts" cut out of them - has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls.

Orem police say Flix Club owner Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, and Issac Lifferth, 24, were booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old.

CBS Station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that the shocking discovery came when a mother found a $20 bill in her daughter’s room last week and questioned her about where the money came from.

The girl confessed that she and a friend had been paid for sexual favors by an older male. Lifferth was additionally charged with patronizing a prostitute and was also in possession of a prescription drug medication without a prescription.

Thompson's Flix Club was one of several Utah-based video outlets that traded in edited versions of R- and PG-13-rated films, catering to clientele who wanted to watch hit movies without nudity, sex, language or graphic violence.

Such video editing operations came under the gun of Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America. In a case brought by the DGA, a federal judge ruled in 2006 that editing out material (such as Kate Winslet's bare breasts in "Titanic") violated copyright laws. The decision was against a Utah company called Clean Flicks.

Thompson, who was a franchise operator for Clean Flicks, opened Flix Club last year, similarly trading in edited videos but claiming that such editing was for "educational use."

Threats of lawsuits from the Hollywood studios forced him to agree to shut down on December 31.

Link at :

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/25/national/main3753682.shtml

=//Turnquest

"Ay-rab run electronics bodegas"

Just wanted to share some kind words of wisdom and droll observations from my man The Last Real New Yorker over at NiggaKnow.com

Here's a taste:

Now its been a motherfucking minute since i copped some technological grip or even thought about grabbing one of them shits when i was passing one of them Ay-rab run electronics bodegas they got all over Times square, where they is pushing them overpriced refurbished goods on obese red faced motherfuckers named Llewelyn from South Dakota, or some Hiroshi Toshi Katakashi samurai niggas and they twelve friends who feel like they gonna fucking die if they don’t take a fucking photo of the Empire State Building from the same angle that forty-five million other Lo Pai Wang oriental niggas done did the other day. But that don’t mean this nigga ignoring technology like peoples ignoring the fact that Obama used to be all about the fucking snow.

Read more socio-political observations right here.

=//Turnquest

Gaza on edge of catastrophe

The Israeli blockade and embargo on the Gaza Strip has brought its one and a half million residents to the edge of catastrophe. At the time of this writing, Palestinians living in Gaza have been without power for four days. Hospitals and clinics are on their last supplies of electricity. Gaza’s meagre infrastructure, already crippled from months of inter-factional conflict and Israeli air raids, is on the verge of collapse. The spectre of a humanitarian crisis looms over the tiny territory. The U.N. Security Council has called for an emergency meeting to be held on Tuesday to discuss the situation. How have things in the region gotten so awful when only a few months ago there was renewed talk of peace at Annapolis?

Let’s start with a little background. Two and a half years ago, the nation of Israel conducted a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation. The move was initiated by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and seen by most international observers as progress for peace. However, for those living in Gaza and Israel, the withdrawal was met with equal parts suspicion and outright opposition. Israeli settlers, some of whom had been living there for decades, believed that Israel was essentially abandoning them and their interests and that they were surrendering to the Palestinians. They maintained that any land handed over would inevitably be used by the Palestinians to launch further rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli cities like Ashkelon and Sderot.

Palestinians on the other hand had mixed reactions. Some saw any return of land and disengagement on the part of Israel as a good thing and an important step towards the greater overall objective of complete withdrawal from all Palestinian land. It was also seen as an admission that even well-established settlements built on Palestinian land were not wholly legitimate nor viable. Others believed however that because the withdrawal had been initiated by Sharon, one of the Palestinians’ most reviled and mistrusted opponents, that there had to be some sinister motivation to it all. As the old proverb goes: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

Ironically, sceptics on both sides were proven partially right. Qassam rocket attacks from Gaza did not cease, despite promises of ceasefires by the PLO. Hamas, the political party designated a terrorist organization by several Western countries including Canada, won parliamentary elections in January 2006. This lead almost immediately to terrible clashes with losing party Fatah and the impression that the whole of Palestine was in chaos. For their part though, Israeli military activity against targets in Gaza continued as well, including numerous aerial strikes and even tank sorties.

In any case, the developments over the course of the last week have shown that even supposedly full military disengagement by the Israelis cannot disentangle the two neighbours from each other so easily. Perhaps the biggest factor leading to the current gloomy state has been the absence of U.S. pressure on the two sides to come together and work out an agreement. A single high-profile trip and summit is just not enough.

The real tragedy though is that observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not even see this development as anything surprising. Extreme hardship, human suffering and conflict of the most savage degree are all ordinary facets of this struggle. If, as President Bush and others refer to it, this is the Holy Land, I ask: What’s so damned holy about it?

=//Turnquest

There Will Be Blood

I've never done this on this blog before, written a movie review that is, but what the fuck, I want to share and organize my thoughts about what I consider to be not only the best film of the year, but one of the true greats I've seen in my lifetime. That being said, I'm not sure if I could stomach seeing it again anytime soon, but whatever.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier, Ciaran Hinds & Kevin J. O'Connor
Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

The quick and the narrow: Worth seeing in theatres.

American cinema over the past eight or nine years has fallen off...hard. The true gems are few and far in between and the rest of the while, one finds oneself having dug through a pile of dirt and filth, empty-handed and feeling rather hustled. I came of age just in time to experience that magical year of 1999, the last great year, where film fans were treated to a string of dazzling, brilliant, daring films one after the other all year long. Just recounting some of them brings feelings of incredulity: Eyes Wide Shut, Fight Club, Three Kings, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty, Sleepy Hollow, Toy Story 2, The Insider, The South Park movie, Angela's Ashes... These came out in the same year? I could go on. The Phantom Menace anyone? How about the original Matrix?

Maybe 1999 spoiled me. Maybe we can only get those sorts of years once every decade, if that. Maybe the vast majority of films can simply never be as great as the ones I listed above. Maybe I should just lower my expectations from now on.

Then again, we come across years like 2007. While the barrage of instant classics last year wasn't as relentless as 1999, the quality of the seldom few classics released was enough to forever implant fond memories for 2007 in me. Chief amongst these films, which include must-sees like Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Lake of Fire, Hot Fuzz, Michael Clayton and Sicko will undoubtedly stand There Will Be Blood.

In that lovely year of 1999, Paul Thomas Anderson delivered Magnolia, a messy, rambling indie art saga that, while certainly worth a watch, was too weighed down by self-conscious stylishness and heavy indulgences into melodrama and sentimentality. There Will Be Blood has none of that film's flaws. In fact, it doesn't even have very many of Magnolia's strengths. The two films seem as if they've been made by totally different people. One might ask oneself after witnessing the awesome spectacle that is this film and its staggering ending: "When he wrote this, what was he thinking?"

On the surface, Blood seems to tell the story of a vicious, sociopathic oilman named Daniel Plainview who strives to find his fortune amongst the desolate wastelands of turn-of-the-century California. Plainview is a bitter, tightly-wound man who keeps to himself until he absolutely requires the services of someone else. Then he discards the person as soon as their usefulness dwindles, as if disposing of a Kleenex. He is more isolated and alone than any Cast Away figure on a desert island. As Plainview reveals during one chilling scene: "I hate most people...there are times when I look at people and see nothing worth liking."

Clearly he carries personal demons. But there is the first sign that Blood is not your average Hollywood epic. Nearly every film of this style, the much-maligned "biopic," tries to explain or excuse the flaws of its main character. It's usually the bad childhood reason, or that he's under control of a ruthless slavemaster or fueled by ill-minded political ideology. Either way, the point is to explain how the villain became the way he is and why he makes the choices that he does. This film doesn't. It shows, but it doesn't tell. And the fact that there is no clear motivation offered, aside from perhaps "greed," opens the door in our minds to wonder why evil men act the way they do.

Day-Lewis gives one of the most indelible, unshakable and unsettling performances I've ever seen. He is in virtually every scene, oftentimes shot in close-up or forced to act totally on his own. Sometimes he speaks in whispers, other times growling and roaring with the ferocity of an uncaged lion, yet always singularly in character. It's a transformative role, and afterwards one can scarcely imagine meeting in person Day-Lewis the actor rather than Daniel Plainview the oilman.

Paul Dano, the flipside of Plainview's capitalist, as Christian preacher Eli Sunday holds his own against Day-Lewis. Dano is given some of the more difficult scenes, some of which would collapse into outright farce if they were performed by a lesser actor. His innocent, doe-eyed face evolves into frothing, apocalyptic prophet mode so naturally during one scene early on that we as the audience can barely look at the character, or any ranting man-of-God for that matter, the same way again.

Which leads us to the themes and ideas that Anderson brings up during the film. Unfettered capitalism, modern organized religion, the American dream, ties of kinship, family and blood, fatherhood, physical disability, misanthropy, nihilism, the mythology of the Old West, the simply joys of rural living and the environmental impact of humans all filter through one's mind while watching Blood.

Did I mention oil? No? Well that's okay. Oil is the McGuffin here, the slick black lubricant that flows through the crevices of Anderson's film and the brains of his characters. Dreams of oil wealth give birth to the fevered looks in the characters' eyes, the stench of raw greed one can sense emanating from their clothes, greasing the story's sprockets. Can something as primal as oil, or say, in the case of the Coen's No Country for Old Men, money, really cause otherwise decent men to turn evil?

The answer Anderson gives is assuredly yes. We humans are, sadly enough, crude creatures driven by the pursuit of worldly, materialistic things. The question of whether or not we would slit our fellow human's throats over a chunk of gold or, in worse times, a scrap of bread, we don't really want to have to answer.

The story There Will Be Blood tells is what happens to a selfish man when he encounters the thirst of oil, the sin of greed and the promise of absolute power. What it asks of us the audience though is what separates us from him. And there is no easy answer for that.

=//Turnquest