Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda

Now For Something Completely Different

Here are the last ten items in my rental queue.

1. The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season - Disc 2  (2008)
2. The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season - Disc 1  (2008)
3. Milk  (2008)
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still  (2008)
5. Volver [WS]  (2006)
6. Eagle Eye [WS]  (2008)
7. Choke [2008]  (2008)
8. The Wire: The Complete Fourth Season [4 Discs] - Disc 3  (2006)
9. The Wire: The Complete Fourth Season [4 Discs] - Disc 4  (2006)
10. Heroes: Season 1 - Disc 7

Out of the films above, I love Volver. This was my second viewing. Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar are a fantastic combination. Milk was moving. The remaining three ranged from mediocre to suckworthy. As for the series, The Wire is God. Heroes is pretty entertaining. My inner geek enjoys most things superhero/comic book-related. 

I never engage in internet memes, so now is a time to start.

Let's see what your rental history says about you. If you don't subscribe to a mail service such as Netflix or Blockbuster, then just list the last ten movies you rented and/or watched.

I hereby tag Adam, Eric, Randal, Dr. Monkey, Zen Yenta, my Agitprop-GFA51-Defeatist blogging comrades and anyone else who would like to participate.

If you are disgusted by indulgent capitulation to this interweb behavior then feel free to shame me.

Arrest This Girl, Her Hitler Hairdo is Making Me Feel Ill

I've always found attempts at cleansing the language to protect some imaginary person's feelings to be just plain retarded, especially when the words in question - and their intent upon use - are commonly understood by both parties. Well, the folks at Rumproast have presented a meme that seeks to reclaim certain words in the English language.

They're not advocating we open the floodgates and let every nasty word spill out through the series of tubes that is the internets. But they've have raised some interesting points, which got me thinking... 

"Bush" and "retard" were practically synonymous throughout the Proggelsphere over the last eight years.

"Is this country ready for an African American president?...It's ready for a retarded president, why wouldn't it be ready for an African American president?" -- Chris Rock

I'd like some to seriously argue that calling President Bush retarded is a grave affront to mentally disabled people. Maybe it's already out there. Who knows - I am too lazy to google it. I do recall some disgust at the moniker McLame (ha! I used it! It was fun!) for our dearly defeated GOP candidate John McCain.

I wonder how many people didn't think twice about calling the former president a idiot, imbecile or moron?

In the 1910's Goddard became world-famous for his ideas about "feeble-mindedness" particularly his belief that it was a hereditary trait. His seminal work, The Kallikak Family, studying two strains of the same family (one strain considered normal, the other considered "defective") became an international bestseller and became extremely popular in Germany under the Nazi regime.

He personally instituted a testing system at Ellis Island in order to keep these "feeble-minded" people out of the United State used to reject an estimated 80% of potential immigrants and forcing them to be deported back to their home country. It was in the midst of Goddard's work on intelligence testing that he coined the word "moron."

He created a classification system for those on the bottom end of the intelligence scale: people whose IQ was between 0-25 would be classified as idiots, people with an IQ between 25 and 50 would be imbeciles and those with an IQ between 50 and 75 would be classified as Goddard's own invention: morons. 

Thus, if using the word lame to describe Michael Steele's chairmanship of the GOP (dude, he really is lame) is somehow ableist, then it is thereby racist to call anyone a moron, since the user of this word is unconsciously dredging up the legacy of eugenics, white supremacy and forced sterilization. 

See how absurd that sounds? The person who uses the word moron to refer to people of this ilk does not intend to sterilize a Congressman - or do they?

Hey, that's actually not a bad idea...

You decide. Where do we draw/erase the line?

Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat

President Obama should sign an immediate Executive Order mandating that Keyboard Cat accompany Joe Biden at all his public and/or media appearances.

Yes, And Before We Get Nailed...

Image: Commandante Agi.

William Donohue isn't going to stop doing that voodoo that we know so well unless he is discredited and his mojo-making money source disabled. To that end, courtesy of the able and determined Phoenix Woman, your magic wand has arrived with excellent instructions, none of which will remind you of that time you assembled Swedish furniture. Nope.

So warm up and warble, "SPARTACUS!" but don't forget the power in your hands.

Out Damn Meme!

(At Least It's Not Fifty-Five ...)

Thanks Robot Buddha for tagging me with the "Five Random Facts" meme. I hope your computer seizes up. So here goes:

1) I detest memes.

2) I am an arts and commercial (mostly securities) attorney living in NYC.

3) I did not start this blog, but was invited to take over when Comandante Agi changed focus.

4) I started Typepad Refugees in a blind rage after Typepad screwed us for three days. The Heretik and Shakespeare's Sister (both of whom I thank) and perhaps others did the design work because I am hopless at that sort of thing.

5) Agitprop is still not on O'Reilly's list. Dammit.