All the News That's Fit to Print
Because a smile right now is a good idea: chicken legs on the move. Yes, attached to the chicken. Don't be gross. It's on Cute Overload, for gossakes.
I know most people on my list were probably watching the Battlestar Galactica finale last night, which I did tune in to out of curiosity for the rerun (about the last half hour, anyway), and ended up writing down a number of reactions to it that I figured my flist probably wouldn't want to see, such as ( minor spoilers )
For most of the night, though, I was over on the Discovery Channel watching Planet Earth. (Watch out for this Web link - it's pretty buggy on my Mac.) Damn, but that was some majorly beautiful nature photography. The aerial views of the reindeer migrations were spectacular. I know where I'll be hanging out for the next few Sunday nights.
But here's why the smile was needed: All the President's Men was playing on AMC today. In the current political context... damn, that picture is scary all over again. And Nixon happened within my living memory. Presumably too, there are a whole lot of people out there, older than me, whose memories are similarly not faulty, and yet... here we are. Again. How did that happen?
And the thing that kills? I think back to The X-Files, and the way that show was filled with so much retro imagery calling back to exactly this time period, or at least the parts of it that had been impressed upon the popular imagination: Deep Throat, the clandestine meetings in dark garages, the paranoia that the government was keeping secrets from us all, and all of it mixed up with urban-legend rumors about Area 51 and aliens. What does that say, other than that's what the government had - has? - become exactly that to a large segment of the population? An urban legend, a subconscious fear. The bogeyman.
Consider the Cigarette-Smoking Man. A relic from political crimes of the past, still influencing modern policy. Marching to his own drummer, and never mind what the people think.
That's just... creepy. Really creepy.
I know most people on my list were probably watching the Battlestar Galactica finale last night, which I did tune in to out of curiosity for the rerun (about the last half hour, anyway), and ended up writing down a number of reactions to it that I figured my flist probably wouldn't want to see, such as ( minor spoilers )
For most of the night, though, I was over on the Discovery Channel watching Planet Earth. (Watch out for this Web link - it's pretty buggy on my Mac.) Damn, but that was some majorly beautiful nature photography. The aerial views of the reindeer migrations were spectacular. I know where I'll be hanging out for the next few Sunday nights.
But here's why the smile was needed: All the President's Men was playing on AMC today. In the current political context... damn, that picture is scary all over again. And Nixon happened within my living memory. Presumably too, there are a whole lot of people out there, older than me, whose memories are similarly not faulty, and yet... here we are. Again. How did that happen?
And the thing that kills? I think back to The X-Files, and the way that show was filled with so much retro imagery calling back to exactly this time period, or at least the parts of it that had been impressed upon the popular imagination: Deep Throat, the clandestine meetings in dark garages, the paranoia that the government was keeping secrets from us all, and all of it mixed up with urban-legend rumors about Area 51 and aliens. What does that say, other than that's what the government had - has? - become exactly that to a large segment of the population? An urban legend, a subconscious fear. The bogeyman.
Consider the Cigarette-Smoking Man. A relic from political crimes of the past, still influencing modern policy. Marching to his own drummer, and never mind what the people think.
That's just... creepy. Really creepy.