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| Rumors and Drama | April 10, 2007, 10:42AM |
 by: Vampire_Lycan_Bich |
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If you're only supposed to care about what you know is true then why is it that people always judge and get judged, and when it happens they try to comform or freak out starting drama? I mean isn't the point of anything be it a relationship, a breakup, even a RUMOR supposed to be that you let it slide by because if its not true then you know the truth and people can just get over themselves? If thats true then why is it that so many people are starting drama over rumors?Since when was our life supposed to revolve around being accepted by your peers. You can't deny that at one point in your life you either did, said, or went along with something you didn't fully agree with. People like to talk and if they think that its funny or cool well then just let them run their mouth, because what they have to say shouldn't bug you. All that matters is what you know to be true. I am a product of what happens when you allow rumors to just go around. Because, i've learned in this life that life will go on and people like to talk. Just because one day you're the topic of their interest that doesn't mean anything. I've had people talk about me all my life. I'm fat, and I'm a bisexual. I admitted this to people before it started to become popular in our society for some reason. I was shunned, laughed at, and even had rumors spread about me because sadly, there's no place for a bisexual in your gym class. We are here to live a life of our own. Meet people who make us feel comfortable with who we are and what we want to do with our life. Yet, everyday you're hearing about teenagers committing suicide or even having sex and getting pressured because they were pressured by their peers. Yes, some of us are all for having a party getting drunk and going crazy, including sex and all that jazz. Then there's the poor girl or boy who's doing this because they wish to be accepted by the people who they think are their friends. If they're truely your friend they wouldn't pressure you to do anything you didn't want to do. They would go around talking about you behind you back. But, then again i come to a reasoning that people do what they do and talk about you for a reason. How many times in your life have you come to a point where you've become so overwhelmed that you don't know who your true friends are anymore? Well there's a reason for why people talk and pressure you. A true friend isn't going to do that to you. No they'll just sit back and let you live the life you want to and be there for you until the end. Maybe rumors and drama has been put into place to weed out the real people from the fake. So then that leaves me with the final question. How do you weed out your friends? Do you allow people to run your mouth? Or, do you just get defensive and freak out making people think the rumors are true? | |
topic: Life | |
[reply] [6 comments] |
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| My response to Barack Obama | April 6, 2007, 3:06AM |
 by: Seregloth |
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I wrote this in response to the good senator's question of "How can we engage more people in the democratic process?" I thought this would be interesting to post, even though it's long and I jump around like a gazelle with A.D.D. Enjoy! ----------------------------------------------------------------- I may not vote for you, but I am curious of what you would do if elected, not just what you promise to do. As for the question at hand, for starters the whole checks and balances system is out of whack. One thing that would help restore balance is TERM LIMITS. Thus far, the only major national office that has term limits is the one you are running for. As a result, there's no new blood in the system, as you are aware there are senators who have been in office longer than I've been alive (which granted, is only 17 years, but that's not the point) From what I've seen most senators and congressmen care more about their political careers than making a difference and can't even relate to the average American. And as for the supreme court justices being appointed for life, it's not the papacy for crying out loud! Americans should be allowed to elect supreme court justices and they too SHOULD HAVE TERMS AND TERM LIMITS. I suppose it's beside the point that the house and senate as whole entities refuse to regulate themselves. Self-gain is not a trait I want in a leader of my country. Is it not the duty of a civil-servant to be just that, a servant? To focus more on the long term repercussions rather than a raise in salary? When did we loose sight of representing the needs of the masses? I've participated in the Texas Youth and Government program throughout my high school years, and I must say I would rather have our student legislature in Washington rather than the members currently elected. I'm not merely saying this to express my frustration, we really could do your job Senator, and do it well. I think spreading awareness about that program would definitely help get more young people interested in the democratic process, as the final answer to your question. It will also let minors know they can make a difference. If a bill is signed by the student governor or has overridden a veto, then it is presented to the actual state legislature. One thing we've debated in our last session was a proposal to repeal the James Byrd Jr. act against hate crimes. In the end the act was deemed unconstitutional on the grounds that a hate crime is a thought crime and one cannot and should not be convicted of a crime simply for hating someone because of their skin pigmentation or gender. Hate is hate, no matter the cause. Oh, and we can't pull out of Iraq. I honestly don't think we'll ever be able to. If we abandon Iraq it will become the new hive for anti-American extremists, much the way Afghanistan was. Do some digging if you don't believe me. Basically the point I'm trying to get across is you have to decide what's more important: politics or progress? If you cut the crap and tell it straight I guarantee you would gain tons of support from all parties just by your honesty. Well anyway, I hope I've given you some food for thought, and don't you dare loose to Hillary in the preliminaries. The last thing we need is a Machiavellian communist calling the shots. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
topic: Current Events | |
[reply] [6 comments] |
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| Silent Hill : Dark Dreams | April 6, 2007, 2:36AM |
 by: asherock3 |
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Silent Hill : Dark Dreams by : A.E.R. Silent Hill, popular survival horror games, as well as a movie. Both circling around the main character's mental state and their past. I will begin with discussing the movie. It starts with a young mother's child having dreams about a town called Silent Hill. Rose, is determined to see the town in hopes it will help her daughter. Certain events involving a chase from a street cop , ends in a crash. Resulting in Rose awakening to find the passenger door of her SUV is wide open with Sharron no where to be found. As Rose steps out of the car, it appears to be snowing when it's in fact, ash and soot. As she enters Silent Hill, she explores the town. Finding out its been cut off from everything modern. Literally the town is cut off from the road. It appears to be like the road has disappeared. Looking over the edge of where the town used to connect to the mountains, Rose encounters a woman named Dahlia. Rose shows Dahlia the locket around her neck that carries a picture of Sharron. Dahlia thinks it's her child and tries to take the locket. Rose is frightened and runs off. She see's what appears to be her daughter Sharron and runs after her, running down into the sewers. Rose see's something hanging from a fence and turns on her lighter to discover its a mutilated body. Now this next part. I'm not too sure how to explain, i guess you could say monsters that resemble young children's bodies size wise, with their skulls twisted around to the side, giving their face, a stretched appearance, begin to come after her and which after she hears this strange siren, they disappear. Leaving Rose passed out. She awakens in a bowling Alley and runs out. Earlier in the SUV, Rose had found a drawing done by Sharron. It had dipicted a school with crosses on top of the doors. Cybil, the police woman that had been chasing them , puts Rose in handcuffs and begins walking her into the town of Silent Hill Cybil proceeds to tell Rose of the history of this town. How a town fire seeped into the underground mines, setting the coal veins on fire. And how the town was evacuated. And accuses Rose of not being Sharron's mother and thinks she came to throw Sharron down a mine shaft. Rose tells her that she would never do that to her own daughter. Cybil notices some thing walking along the cliff side and calls it over. Little does she know its nothing she expected. It appears to be incased in its skin, and an opening in where its chest is supposed to be, spits acid onto her. While Cybil begins shooting "it" Rose makes her escape. Running down the road and into Silent Hill. Rose finds a map and heads toward the school. Upon entering, she searchs for a flashlight. After finding one, she begins to explore the dusty and decaying school. She decides to search the upstairs. When she gets there, She follows a young girl into the bathroom. Hearing the young girl crying, Rose begins to open each of the stall doors. Upon the last one, there is, a horribly distorted man, chained in barb wiring to the wall, the man is dead. On the wall behind him, there are the words, "Dare you, Dare you, Double Dare you" with an arrow pointed toward the man's open mouth, which has been chained open. Rose reaches inside his mouth and pulls out what appears to be half a stone with the words "otel" which means hotel. Then she runs out of the bathroom, to have three men spot her. She runs back into the bathroom and locks the door and prays for them to leave her alone. The men carry a bird with them, that starts to go into a frenzy, meaning the darkness is coming. The men run off leaving Rose still locked in the bathroom. The deceased man who had been chained crawls out of the bathroom stall with his feet chained to his head. As he is crawling towards Rose, cockroach type flesh eating monsters, begin to pop out of the ground. Rose runs out the bathroom door and runs down the stairs while the camera angle changes and shows some dead body hanging while she is running down the stairs. As she runs by a hallway, she stops and looks down it to see the three men being eaten alive by the cockroaches. Rose screams and runs out and across the courtyard. She collapses by lockers and beings to sob. As she is laying there, the cockroaches begin to go near her. Someone grabs Rose's arms and pulls her into a room, Rose realizes it is Cybil and they secure the door shut only to find themselves trapped in the small room. Behind them is a large fan which, symbolizes the rebirth and death of Alessa, who later appears in the movie. They hear something being dragged on the floor, like metal. Then a huge knife slices into the room through the doors. The monster only known as Pyramid-Head, begins making a hole with his knife so that the cockroaches can get in. Pyramid-Head is depicted in both the games and the movie, as a 7 foot tall man, with a robe which appears to be made out of flesh wrapped around his waist, and a large pyramid shaped metal object over his head, which can mean pain and suffering. He is brutal and kills anything in his path. Now, as the cockroachs get in, a siren sounds and everything begins turning back to normal. Cybil and Rose, leave the room and go in search of a local hotel where they believe Sharron is. Cybil takes her to the main Hotel in Silent Hill, where they hear Shouts emiting from inside the building, thinking another "acid spitter" was attacking someone. They run into the hotel to find a young girl named Anna throwing rocks at Dahlia. Cybil stops her and Dahlia runs out, while Rose asks Anna why she is in the hotel. Anna tells her her mother needs more food. Cybil, checks out the clerk desk and opens the mail slots to find a folded up drawing for room 111. Cybil shows Rose and its one of Sharron's drawings. They go up the stairs with Anna to search for room 111 where they think Sharron is. As they begin their search for room 111, they can not find it and so Rose see's a portrait of some girl being burned alive and takes out the drawing they found. She cuts through the portrait to find room 111 behind it. They enter it to find another building with a door on it so they jump across to find a cramped room with a bunch of stuff in it. Rose see's a girl who looks like Sharron and runs after her. She jumps across an open pit to reach the girl and see's the girl face to face and says "You could be her twin". The young girl spreads her arms out and says "Look. I'm burning." and flames engulf her arms before she disappears. Cybil helps Rose back across the open pit, and asks her who that was. Rose says back "I think i just saw Dahlia's daughter. Alessa." and Anna replies "We don't say her name" and after a few minutes of pointless talking, birds fly out of the open pit and Anna tells them they have to hurry for the darkness is coming. They run all the way to a church, where people are running into it, and Dahlia tries to stop Cybil and Rose from going in there. Claiming they are damned and will drag them into their own hell. Anna throws a rock and hits Dahlia, making her fall down. Rose helps her and then, everything becomes pitch black. Cybil turns on her flashlight to see everything rotting and changing and takes Rose's hand and runs with her to the church, before they enter, they turn to see Anna about to throw another rock at Dahlia, and then Pyramid-Head appears behind her and grabs her. Pyramid-Head holds her by the neck up, and rips off her clothing, and then, as Rose and Cybil enter the church, he rips off Anna's skin and throws it at them, covering them in blood. The people in the church, try to beat Rose and Cybil, yelling they are witches, when Christabella, comes in and calms them all down, Anna's mother hugs Christabella and says "The lured my Anna, they gave her to the fiend." with which Christabella replies "You have to remember Anna went against our laws. she went out into the devil's playground alone. She was not the responsibilty of these two strangers." And then Christabella and the rest besides Rose and Cybil, pray. After they pray, Christabella asks them how they got here and what they are looking for and then, they take Cybil and Rose to a hosptipal where the demon lies. They open the Elevator for them and then, as Christabella hands Rose her locket, she see's that Sharron looks just like Alessa. She screams "witch!" and the men who came with them, try to attack them, Cybil holds them off and tells Rose to find her daughter before shutting the elevator. As Rose goes downward into the darkest part of the hospital, Cybil gets beaten with pipes for helping her. Rose exits the elevator and starts running, following the directions that she memorized. As she gets to the demon's room, there are, dead nurses with their faces bandaged up. Now these are supposed to represent Alessa's hate of beautiful women. Because since her body was burned so badly, she could never really mature into something beautiful. Anyway, as Rose tries to sneak past them, they sense her and begin attacking her, only to begin missing her and killing other nurses. Rose leaves the light on the floor and runs into the demon's room. A little girl says "You made it Rose, your reward is the truth." Now this part is slightly long and it would take quite some time to qoute exactly what she said so i will give a brief explanation about it. It goes on to show how Alessa, didn't have a father and how she was called a witch because of it. and after she runs into a bathroom, it shows a man and it gives the impression that he rapes her. After you hear the young Alessa scream, it shows Dahlia, much younger, with beautiful red hair, coax her out of a bathroom stall and comfort her baby. Christabella appears behind Dahlia and tells her to just name who the father is. And then she goes on to say that they must "purify" this sin. It skips to men and women walking down a hotel hallway with Alessa and Dahlia. They take Alessa and tell Dahlia " we invite the sin, not the sinner" and Alessa proceeds to scream and yell "Mommy!", and Dahlia runs off saying "what have i done" and then it skips to Alessa literally being burned alive over a pit of fire with her screaming in agony. But then, the chains holding her over the fire, break and the thing she is strapped to, swings around and knocks over the pit of fire, setting the curtains covering the windows on fire. Not soon after everyone runs out, the police with Dahlia, run in and try to save Alessa. The young girl then says "Now you know why Dahlia is broken". It then shows Rose standing inside a..well to put it, a hospital room covered in darkened blood. Rose attempts to talk to the nurse who continually keeps her back to her while walking away. The same girl who appears to be Sharron's twin comes out by the nurse and says "don't be afraid, she wont hurt you. she needs your help" to which Rose lifts up the curtains around the actual Alessa's hospital bed and asks "where is my daughter" to which the child replies "she is not your child. She is her's" while she is pointing toward the bed and then the camera zooms in to show the bottom half of Alessa's face to show her smiling. The child continues on to say "She is what's left of her good side. We hide her outside this hell." and some other info that isn't really important is said, and then the child talks about wanting satisfaction, or Revenge. Rose agrees to help and the child goes inside of Rose's body. Then it goes to see Cybil tied to some type of ladder over burning fire and she is being lowered onto the fire to be burned alive, it shows Cybil's flesh begin to melt off and then she is completely engolfed in flames with Sharron screaming down below. Then it skips to Rose's husband being escorted by police to the town lines of where He, Rose, and Sharron live. And he tells the police that he will be back with people who know what they are doing. Then it skips back once again, to the church after Cybil has died. And now they have Sharron tied to another ladder, ready to "purify" her sins. Right before they lower the ladder and start the fire, Rose bursts through the door and begins to tell the townspeople the truth about Alessa. When she gets to Christabella, she stabs Rose through the heart, causing Rose to fall to the ground. While they all scream to burn her, her bleed starts rotting the ground, causing the darkness to finally enter the church, the middle of the church where the fire had been, crumbles into the ground, With the older Alessa and her Barbed wire for a weapon, come up through it. Alessa begins to kill people with the barbed wire i.e. breaking their bodies in half. Then Alessa goes to Christabella, and I'm not going to go into detail about, but her barbed wires go up Christabella's bum, and rip her in half. Rose unties Sharron from the ladder and takes her into a corner and tells her to shut her eyes and then Sharron see's the demon girl and passes out. When they leave the church, all the blood and guts are gone and Dahlia is sitting on the stairs and asks Rose why Alessa didn't kill her too. To which Rose replies "Mother is god in the eye's of a child." And then they go back to her SUV and leave the town of Silent Hill, but they are still stuck in a different reality than Rose's husband is in so in the end, they never truelly return to the how they once were. Now that was the movie, in my own words by how i saw it. Some of it, is not correct, i understand that, but its how i saw things. Now i will give quick thoughts on each of the Silent Hill games which the movie is based on. Silent Hill One, follows a man looking for his daughter who is in the town of silent hill, in the end it turns out to be alessa and after he kills Alessa's true form, she hands Harry who is the main character's name, a baby girl to which he takes and raises as his own daughter. Now i understand once again, that that is a very short thing. The game itself, is less physcological, than the others. Silent Hill Two, follows James, who has recieved a letter from his deceased wife, and in hopes of her still being alive, heads to the town of Silent Hill. He meets a woman who looks strikingly like Mary his wife. In the game he see's her being brutally murdered in total about three times by Red Pyramid-Head. At the end it shows that He is the one that actually killed his wife and he takes the other woman's body to perform a ceremony on her to bring Mary's spirit into her or something close to that. Now this game is much more physcological to which that James is not all that sane and eventually in the end, suggests that he loses his mind completely. Silent Hill Three, is about Harry's daughter he took from Alessa. She is supposedly said to be the bringing of god for an everlasting paradise. In the end, she kills god in a way. Now this one, i can not really tell what the true meaning is. Anyway. Silent Hill Four : The Room is about Henry, who one day finds himself trapped in his own apartment.No one can hear his screams for help and a strang hole appears in his bathroom and continues to get bigger. Whoever dies in the other worlds he visited, dies in the real world. He stops the man who tries to bring some monster to life and depending on the ending, purifies the apartment complex of the spirits. This one, gives questions as to if it was all in the guy's mind, or if it really happened. Now to end my paper, i will just tell some information of the town these popular survival horror games and movie are from. Centralia Pennsylvania, have coal fires below the city in the mine shafts still burning today after almost 2 decades. The town has been evacuated, though some die hard residents still refuse to leave. After almost 40 million dollars attempting to put out the fire, no such luck has been granted. It is said that the fires could burn for almost 1000 more years before finally dying out. And that is my paper on Silent Hill. | |
topic: Various | |
[reply] [7 comments] |
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| joined thoughts | March 30, 2007, 12:00AM |
 by: Drkmtl |
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There once was an drunk named Joe and his beautiful wife Cristine. Joe had some serious anger issues that he had, had since he was young. And Cristine had a uncontrollable meth addiction and serious split personality disorder. He was bullied constantly when he was young. He never just blew up and let any of his anger out. He picked up drinking because, it helped bottle his emotions up inside. Cristine had taken up meth years back, and would have extreme outbursts of rage and lose all control. Joe loved the sight of a cold, frosty beer sitting in his hand. The thin foam over the top after every drink he took. And Cristine loved the sight of the slightly darkened end of a glass crack pipe steaming after a hit. For some obscured reason Joe and Cristine got along great because of their morbid thoughts of sadism and blasphemy. Their awful thoughts started bleeding though their addictions. They would then start describing how they wished the people that they hate would die. One day Joe had the thought that maybe they should try out their thoughts on some one they both hated. This guy was creepy, perverted, misconstrued 22 year old that loves to drink and smoke weed, he thrives on 16 year olds and also has some quite morbid thoughts of raping the girls he takes an interest in. Joe and Cristine both hated him because he had tried to get with Cristine. So Joe and Cristine both stalked Jacob until he eventually went down a old country road that never got used. Joe floored the car and rammed the back tire of Jacob's car, spinning him out of control and sending him into a tree totaling his shitty ass car. Joe and Cristine then go to the trunk of their car pullout razor blades, hydrochloric acid, and a butcher knife. They then walk over to the car where Jacob is struggling to get free from his car. Jacob then starts panicking when Joe went for his eye with a razor blade and punched Joe in the face. Joe's face then boiled over with rage and he started slashing Jacob's face with the razor. Jacob then starts screaming with pain. As Jacob looked up at Cristine with a look of faith in his cold, scared eyes, that she might possibly save him, she took the butcher knife, pressed it against his already bloody, tearful cheek and slowly cut, roughly but slowly down his throbbing torso. Joe and Cristine both then pulled Jacob's blood covered body out of the car as he wailed in pain. They then laid his worthless body out on the road and took the bottle of hydrochloric acid and doused his sorry ass in it. Joe and Cristine watched with morbid pleasure as his skin started to melt away and burn while he screamed all the way till he died and took his last breath. Joe and Cristine packed up in the car and took off back to their house and then waited to see their work on the news. His gruesome murder was brodcasted on all four news channels. Joe and Cristine both felt proud of their work. The morbid couple then went to the table, sat down and plotted yet another one of their grotesque murders. Joe had one person he had wanted to kill since he was in high school. This guy was the stupidest shit kicker he had ever known. This worthless ass wipe was the reason for Joe getting arrested back in the 10th grade. So Joe and Cristine loaded up their car with awkward tools to teach him a lesson; TO MIND HIS OWN FUCKING BUSSNESS! They then drove out to his ranch in the far outskirts of town. They hid in one of the sheds that he had to go in to and waited for him to walk in. Finally he walked in and Joe gave him a blow to the head with a brick. As he laid there squinting to try and see who it was that did it Joe flipped on the light. The look on Joe's worthless victims face was full of regret and fear. Joe looked around and found a tool that he loved. It was a branding iron. Joe picked up the tool and turned to his victim reared back with it and the Cristine step in and told him to put it down. Joe was stunned and then Cristine came up to Joe and whispered in his ear, " you of all people can kill him more creatively than just beating him to death with a branding iron". Joe looked up at his prey and dropped the iron. His enemy's face lit up with hope. Joe then walked over there to his enemy and knocked him out. While he was knocked out Joe and Cristine held him against the wall of the shed and nailed him to it. The enemy then came to and started pleading for his worthless life. Joe walks up to him and asks, "why should I of all people let you live? You are the reason I served time in jail." He replied, "cause it wasn't me who did it. I would never narc on for drugs." Joe quickly snapped back and yelled at him, "WHY IS IT CAUSE YOU THINK IM CRAZY BITCH?! OR IS IT CAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO DIE HERE TONIGHT?! IT WAS YOU THAT NARCD! YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE THAT KNEW OF THE STUFF I HAD! NOW YOUR GOING TO DIE SLOW PAINFULLY! BITCH YOU MADE A BIG MISTAKE!" By this time Joe was filled with pure hatred. He then picked up a old rusty razor blade and slit his victims wrists, the insides of his elbows, the backs of his knees, his akeles tendon, and last but not least, his throat. Then watched as the bastard bleed to death. The gruesome couple went on to kill every one they ever hated. They were never caught. The two psychopaths need up disappearing with no traces. Even today if you watch the news you can still hear about their grizzly murders from all across the country. So far the US Marshall's can connect 93 explicit crime scenes to the duo. The two were last spotted in Weatherford, Texas leaving the residents of Chisum Smith's ranch. This story isn't completely finished. Authors- John McWatters and Deana Wright more of this story is to come soon | |
topic: Essays | |
[reply] [4 comments] |
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| QUICK KILLERS short story | March 29, 2007, 10:35AM |
 by: brokn_within_secrets |
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She lay curled into the corner of the small dark room, the blanket pulled tight around her. The blanket�s warmth was her only little comfort, even if it had started to smell salty from her sweat. But, it kept her warm in the drafty little cell. Somewhere, in the dark, she could hear her friend sobbing from the other room. She wanted so bad to reach out, to touch and comfort the young girl and tell her everything would be okay, but that would bring him back. He could hear all, he was omnipresent, and sometimes he made her doubt even her thoughts were safe. She crawled across the cell and pressed her head against the wall, and offered a silent prayer and a few unspoken words of comfort to her friend. She knew the action was futile, pointless, but it eased her guilt, and suddenly the sobs began to weaken and for just a moment she thought her action had an effect on the girl. And then his footsteps came, heavy and hard on the cement floor. They drew closer, louder, until each footfall as a mental explosion. He�s coming for me, she said silently to herself, He�s already had Lysa once today, and she hadn�t satisfied him, so he�s coming for me! The footfalls stopped just outside her cell, and she felt a cold shiver run through her body. She dreaded the blindfold, the feeling of his arms around her as he carried her away, and his dick inside of her as she screamed until her throat was dry. He�s coming for me! The sound of the rusted hinges creaking made her wince, and she closed her eyes tighter, not wanting to look upon the monster. She waited, and waited, and nothing came. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and the cell was still dark. The sound of leather cracking against flesh and bone rang through the darkness, and young Lysa let out a frightful bawl. The hinges creaked again, and the Cell door slammed shut, and he was gone once more. He likes to hear us cry, she thought as she pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. I won�t cry anymore. Time had disappeared, slipped into the dark void of The World outside her cell. All that she had was her cell, oppressingly dark and horribly cold. She had tried to keep a sense of time, of minutes and hours and days, but she stopped after the first time he had raped her. She had been blindfolded and tied down, immobile and unable to fight. He�d cut away her clothes and never given her anymore, only leaving her a tattered shirt he�d torn in his lust. She�d fought, as hard as she could, for the first few times. And he�d beaten her, hard and relentlessly, until she had learned to withdraw deep into herself and go to another world until he placed her back into her cell like a child replaces a toy after he�s grown bored. The world she had withdrawn into was where she wanted to be, but was getting harder to conjure with every passing day. The first day she had lay there afterwards in her cell, wrapped tight in the blanket, and drifted off. Only it was her Prince making love to her, and she could see his face perfectly. Now it was different. He was a blur, unrecognizable, and sometimes He would enter into her fantasy world unwelcomed, brushing her Prince aside and forcing himself upon her. He oppressed her even in her dreams. The footfalls came again, waking her from her uneasy sleep. The door was pushed open violently, parting the darkness with a burst of light that cast the Monster in a dark Silhouette, and a small plastic baggy came was thrown into the room before the door was slammed shut once again. She crawled for the bag, feeling for it in the darkness on her hands and knees. She found it, snatched it eagerly, and parted the lips. She cupped a handful of the contents in her hand and swallowed it eagerly. The taste was foul and she gagged violently, but forced the meal down. She would need her strength, she knew. �Here ye go, Darlin�.� She paused suddenly as a wave of horror passed through her. It was His voice. The Monster. It was low and soft, almost soothing. �I gotsa good meal for ye. No, I won�t hurt ya. I only want ye to eat.� A long pause, and then, cheerily, �Good girl.� The door slammed, and he was gone again, his heavy footsteps echoing away into the darkness. Lysa had screamed when he came for her the next day, and the sound of his blows and the choking sobs as he beat her poured through the walls. She cried, wanted so bad to fight, and when Lysa�s screams died down to soft whimpers he took her away. It wasn�t long before he came back for her, blindfolding her and taking her in his arms and up the stairs to The Room. When he laid her down on the hard table it felt different, wet and sticky and warm. He tied down her hands above her head, pulled her down and tied her ankles. And she thought of her Prince, confessing his love to her as they made love on satin sheets. Then he kissed her, bringing her sharply out of her fantasy world. Tears streamed down her face as she tasted his foul tongue in her. He broke the kiss, but it had left behind a coppery wetness that lingered in her mouth. And as she laid there in the cell, wrapped in her warm blanket, she realized suddenly what she had tasted on his lips and what the sticky wetness was that still clung to her back: Blood. Lysa did not cry that night. He starved her for the rest of the week, and the silent darkness pressed in around her, and every time she thought about crying she thought about Lysa and had to clamp her hand over her mouth and whisper over and over again in a soothing tone, �He wants you to cry. Don�t cry. He want�s you to cry. Don�t cry.� And to stay sane, she retreated into her fantasy world and thought about pizza and her Prince and reading in front of a fireplace whenever she could. And then he came for her. The smell of food reached her before anything else, and her stomach turned inside her as saliva filled her mouth. Instead of tossing a bag into her cell and leaving, he entered slowly and put the plate down before her. The light of a lamp filled the room, but he remained hidden by shadows. �Don�t worry, Darlin�, I ain�t gunna hurtcha,� he whispered, �I just want ye to eat something.� She looked down at the plate: Some kind of pasta with hunks of beef scattered through it. She filled her mouth and began to chew, letting it slide down her throat and sate her hunger. He giggled as he watched, but she ignored him and kept eating. He took the plate when she was done, and as he bent down the light fell across one side of his face and she caught the slightest glimpse of a quivering jowel thick with fat. As he left, he turned to regard her once again, casting the light of the lantern directly in her eyes. He let out a terrible giggle and whispered, �None of you ask any questions about the food when ye starvin�.� He dipped the plate towards her and giggled, �Say bye to Lysa, darlin�.� As soon as he was gone, she vomited. Her mantra forgotten, she began to sob violently as she threw up the last of the meal, crawled back into the corner, and forced herself to sleep. She didn�t notice when he came for her. The warm feeling of the sun against her face brought her awake and she began to sob as she realized she was not blind folded. She looked around slowly at the beams of sun shining through the thick foliage of the treetops, warming her cold naked body. �Enjoy it, Darlin�,� he said in his small voice, �It�s the last time.� She closed her eyes as he strapped her down, unable to look into his face. She waited for him to force himself into her, but it never came. He walked closer, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. I will not cry, she said to herself, I will not scream. I will not give him satisfaction. A violent blow jarred her from her thoughts, and she felt the bones in her face crack and break. Then another, and another, until all of the pain ran together into numbness. She felt herself go limp and he stopped the beating to giggle, and she dug as deep as she could and brought all of her strength and will power she had to the top and forced her head high. And he knocked it all away with a single blow. Her world began to spin, and she felt herself falling into the void and go limp. She woke to the sound of humming and a grinding soreness in her face. She was no longer tied down and was laying flat and loose upon the table. �Oh, you�re awake!� she looked at him, tried to force her eyes open but they were too heavy to lift. He was simply an indistinguishable blur. �Good,� he said cheerily, �I like them awake for this part.� She cringed at the sound of grinding metal. �I�m going to take you apart, starting with your toes. Did you know that after your head is separated from your body, your brain will register everything for fifteen seconds?� The world began to come into focus, and he turned. He stood there fat and ugly and smiling menacingly, a long-bladed skinning knife with a slight curve held in his hand. �Guess what you�re going to be doing for those last fifteen seconds.� He giggled again, like a child, and slammed the skinning knife point first into the thick oak shoptable. He crossed the room quickly, bent over her and pressed his lips against hers before returning to sharpening the knife. She lay there motionlessly, completely limp. Pain coursed through her face and when she tried to draw a breath through her nose the pain hit her like a solid punch, so she lay there and breathed slowly through her mouth. She wanted, more than anything, to be able to move her legs but they seemed weighted down. She started with a toe, wiggling it slowly. �A good edge is essential,� he muttered as he inspected his work. Unsatisfied, he returned to the whetstone. She slung her legs from the table and pressed her feet silently against the cold cement floor, shifting her weight to her feet and silently bringing her torso up. �Getting close.� She waited until he started again, dragging the blade slowly from one end of the stone to the other, before she lifted herself from the table. A heavy piece of pipe was leaned against the table she had laid on, and she picked it up slowly, wary of the sound of screaming metal against the concrete floor. The pipe was three feet long, skinny but heavy, and slightly bent. She raised it high above her shoulder and started towards him. �There!� He screamed, slamming the knife down and turning slowly to face her. She paused, fear overwhelming her as he looked from her to the pipe and back. Hesitation registered across his face, and he took a step back. �Stay away!� She heard herself scream, and in that single moment of hesitation he lunged at her. She stepped to the side as he lumbered towards her, just outside of his outstretched arms, and brought the pipe down hard across the back of his head. The blow split the skin underneath his thinning hair and he fell to the ground, crying as he tried to stem the flow of blood with his right hand as he pushed himself up with his left. A great rage overtook her, and she brought the pipe down again. Over and over until the Monster�s blood ran thick and black across the shop�s floor. She stood over his corpse, his blood sticky on her bare feet. She felt a great revulsion as her strength left her and the blood splattered pipe became too heavy to lift. She felt like collapsing, falling down and sleeping, but instead forced herself through the door. And fell asleep with the afternoon sun warming her body. | |
topic: Essays | |
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| Black Metal | March 29, 2007, 2:18AM |
 by: Passionfruit |
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Power amps set to explode Energy screams, magic and dreams Satan records the first note We chime the bell, chaos and hell Metal for manics pure. Fast melting steel, fortune on wheels Brain haemorrhage is the cure For BLACK METAL (Venom, Black Metal) Historical Background Black Metal, as a 1990s phenomenon, is a creature with an identity largely distinct from its parent heavy metal music. Growing like a fungus away from the light of mainstream media interest, it developed its own bizarre sounds, imagery and philosophies. Baddeley, G., Lucifer Rising 1999, Plexus, London It is agreed by most that the term Black Metal originated with the phrase in the Venom album “Black Metal” in the early 1980’s. From there it grew to spawn such bands as Bathory, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost. In the early 90’s came the onslaught of Norwegian Black Metal with bands such as Mayhem, Immortal and Emperor. These bands drew influences from Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost and others to form a new genre of metal music – Modern Black Metal, and more specifically, Norwegian Black Metal, Viking Black Metal and Scandinavian Black Metal. Black Metal has always been connected to National Socialism (NSBM – National Socialist Black Metal). Beginning in 1991 there were dozens of church burnings in Norway, which the Norwegians blamed on the Black Metal Circle. The Black Metal Circle was founded by a group of likeminded Scandinavian metal fans who all started their own bands. In the early days they would get together in a dim specialist record store called “Helvete” (hell) owned by Euronymous who founded the band Mayhem. The Black Metal scene is known for its violence. Several murders were linked to major players of the scene and at least 100 churches were burned by arsonists. Count Grishnack, real name Kristian “Varg” Vikernes, went on to stab and kill Euronymous. In prison he injected National Socialism into the blend of Satanism and Paganism. Several likeminded musicians have taken up this ideological composite, with nazism often being the strongest influence. NSBM is plainly fascist. Neo Nazi speech is illegal in much of Europe, leaving those artists consigned to the black market. Definition of key terms Norsecore - a derogatory term used to describe Scandinavian black metal. Also known as raw black metal, and kvlt black metal. It is now somewhat differently used as a derogative term for blasting, high-speed black metal lacking of any real attitude and/or ideology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsecore NSBM - National Socialist black metal (also known as Nazi black metal or NSBM) is a neo-Nazi subgenre of black metal music with lyrics that advocate ideas of racial separatism, anti-Semitism, Aryanism and a desire to return to pre-Christian ways of life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSBM Scandinavian Black Metal - Black metal is dark and fast music using melodic development to express its themes. Of all the metals, this is the most communicative with the modern listener, expressing nihilism and a heroic anti-social assertion of the self. Evolving simultaneously with death metal, this genre includes all of the technique and rhythmic intensity of the former with more emotive and comprehensible poetic communication within the music. http://www.anus.com/metal/about/black_metal/ Viking (Black) Metal - a cross-genre reference usually used to describe the lyrical and thematic elements of bands rather than the music itself. The bands that are associated with viking metal cover a broad range of musical genres and influences, such as folk metal, thrash metal, death metal, black metal, and power metal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Metal Troll (Black) Metal – Some bands, notably Finntroll, have shifted the focus of their music from the heroic humans or God of Norse mythology towards the "villains"- creatures such as trolls and giants. Like Viking Metal, Troll Metal is largely a thematic genre, with bands being musically either Black Metal, Folk Metal or some other form of metal. Like Viking metal, it often contains anti-Christian themes, with the trolls and monsters being a representation of the pre-Christian pagans of Northern Europe. These lyrics are not always entirely serious, though,as they are as much anti-human as they are anti-Christian and could even be seen as a little tongue-in-cheek, parodying the radical anti-Christianity or white supremacist ideas of certain black metal bands. Some Bands: Turisas, Finntroll, Burzum, Gehenna, Darkwood my Betrothed, Ensiferum, Enslaved, Emperor, Immortal, Samael, Katatonia, Gorgoroth, Impaled Nazarene, Beherit, Blasphemy, I Shalt Become, Black Goat, Infernum, Graveland, Gotmoor, Soddom, Abruptum, Dimmu Borgir, Usurper, Von, Dark Tranquility, Dark Throne, Blood, Celtic Frost. Heavy Metal is socially more accepted than it’s subculture Black Metal. Heavy Metal is less brutal in style and sound than Black Metal. Its fans are usually dressed “normal”, whereas Black Metal fans will dress up in clothes covered with metal spikes or even battle clothing, such as chain mail. Corpse Paint is also very common for Black Metal fans to wear. They will also often take on “stage” names from Norse folklore or books such as JRR Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. Heavy Metal fans seem to be a lot more easy going and accepting of other music genres and beliefs and lifestyles. Where Heavy Metal followers are accepting of for example Christianity, Black Metal followers are so against it and determined to do it harm they even burned down churches in the 1990’s, mainly in Norway. With Heavy Metal having so many subcultures it is natural that some will think they are better, and more “true” than others. Bands such as Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth, who have achieved notable commercial success, are branded as not being “true” to the genre by a large part of the Black Metal community. The majority of Black Metal followers are white middle class Europeans with the core follwing being in the Scandinavian countries. Norway is still the generally accepted birthplace of Black Metal. “Maybe they are all the more shocking because those involved a largely white, bright and middle-class. Given that they flag their rejection of mainstream values with the most anti-social icons they can find, perhaps it’s remarkable their Satanic posturing doesn’t lurch into literalism more often.” Baddeley, G., Lucifer Rising 1999, Plexus, London Black Metal is not politically correct. A large part of its followers and artists are Neo Nazis. The Black Metal scene nowadays has a very large number of diverse bands. “Black Metal is defined not so much by a musical style as by a lyrical fixation with the satanic (though not necessarily Satanism itself), evoking dark passions and gothic moods. Within these boundaries, Black Metal is arguably the most vital and creative force in contemporary music.” Baddeley, G., Lucifer Rising 1999, Plexus, London Black Metal is a male dominated genre. It is very rare that the bands have female members, like Angela Grassow, the lead singer of the Swedish/German band Arch Enemy. “The seemingly limitless present-day ambitions of black metal are evident in the mission statement of blackmetal.com, an American on-line store influential in fostering the genre stateside: ‘Black Metal is the state-of-the-art pinnacle in extreme music and most alternative, most underground form of demi-monde culture this side of Hades! BLACK METAL, blackmetal, ‘BM’, ‘Norwegian’, ‘Northern’, ‘true’, ‘elite’, ‘modern black’, ‘dark metal’, ‘Greek’, ‘blackened death’, ‘gothic metal’, ‘Pagan metal’, ‘vampyric, ‘death industrial’, ‘black noise’, ‘dark ambient/black-ambient’, etc. – these are the nomenclature that sets our music apart from the mediocrity of conventional culture and brings us all together in the most cutting-edge community!…Hail Satan!” Baddeley, G., Lucifer Rising 1999, Plexus, London Despite its attempt at isolation from the traditional norm, it has still found it's way into one of the more classical and conservative of art forms. A ballet company, Ballet Deviare. Ballet Deviare is the first and only metal ballet company of its kind, that's right, you saw it correctly METAL and BALLET...specifically catering to the genres of death, doom and grind metal. Fusing "high art" and extreme music together. Ballet Deviare's mission is prompted by the fundamental desire to modify and expand the restrictions of ballet and to further legitimate heavy metal/extreme music as an art form. We deliberately stray from conventional ballet companies in that we offer a different experience, in terms of choreography and music. We are the first ballet company that strictly utilizes death, doom and grind metal as part of our permanent repertoire. The company also strives to cultivate and establish new audiences and to grant expanded artistic opportunities for talented dancers and choreographers. While other companies insist on using old, outdated, cliché music...we have stepped outside that restricted boundary to offer a unique and distinctive performance experience. Who the hell said that high art can't kick ass? Come experience high art, our way. Http://www.myspace.com/balletdeviare As shown in this example as much as a subculture tries to set itself apart from the mainstream there are always ways for it to be brought back together in the way of the mainstream wanting to be cutting-edge and different to the rest of the mainstream, therefore creating it’s own subculture. | |
topic: Essays | |
[reply] [42 comments] |
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| In The Wild. | March 28, 2007, 6:48AM |
 by: Neurotoxic |
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How is the natural world described and distorted in these texts? Why is this the case? The texts are: Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World. Ridley Scott's, Bladerunner. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (BNW) and Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner (BR), both display the distortion of nature. The effect of extrapolated contextual issues in these satirical texts reflects the composer’s context and concern. The novel, BNW, was published in 1932 amidst a period of immense change. Dictatorships, mass persecutions, high unemployment rates and a continuous threat of a world war which were centred around technological development. Technology was valued and scientific development embraced, clearly presented through the text BNW. Huxley conveys the use of technological advancements of scientific research in the first chapter, where the audience is shown the process of human embryos being created and undergoing treatments in test tubes, presented through pseudo-scientific jargon and parody of mass production and eugenics in the 1930’s. In the text BNW, Huxley presents technology as the new Mother Nature, or god. Ford [Henry Ford], has become the new Christ due to his revolutionising mass production techniques, adapted to creating and controlling humans. Nature’s rhythms such as child birth and aging have been abolished in the BNW. Motherhood is detested and is described as a “revoltingly viviparous scene”. Children are now created in test tubes and subjected to treatments and processes such as the ‘Bokanovsky’ process, “shocking an egg so that it divides to form up to ninety-six identical embryos”, enabling ninety-six individuals to man factories, benefiting commerce. Drugs are now prescribed to stop aging and its effects, which places an expiry date on the population, furthering control of the people. Nature is marginalised in the BNW, reduced to few sporting grounds, which utilize “elaborate apparatus”, to encourage commerce. Nature’s value being reversed by Huxley, shows how little regard is held for it in this BNW. Savage reservations hold ‘savages’ who still reproduce sexually, grow old and marry, a total parody to the BNW. The savages are shunned in the society of the BNW, as they are dirty, foul and inhumane, “civilisation is sterilisation”, the hypnopaedic platitude reads. Lenina’s revulsion to age presents the view of society in the BNW “But it’s terrible” she exclaims whereas John presents the view of the reader, “I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.” John says listing each value reversed by Huxley. BR directed by Ridley Scott, was filmed in 1982 [re-edited in 1999 – Directors Cut] and also shows the distortion of nature due to both social contexts of the 70’s and 80’s. Both 1970’s and 1980’s saw the rise of computers, test tube babies and the beginnings of global warming. Cloning was a popular scientific ideal and success was celebrated for both the first test tube baby in 1978 and the cloning of farmyard animals. BR is set in the future Los Angeles in the year 2019. The text begins with a panoramic shot of the metropolis, representing that of hell; fire is bellowing into the darkened sky, ironically in the ‘city of angels’. Nature cannot be seen. It has been destroyed by man. The city shown is overpopulated and Asianised, two prominent concerns of the 1980’s. Nature is now artificially created. “It’s artificial?” Deckard asks, “of course it is” Rachael brusquely replies. Nature’s absence is shown through ‘Voight Kompff’, used to detect replicant as the questions asked are pertaining to animals to create empathy for the now extinct species. The world of BR also shows that natural rhythms are missing, such as night & day and love. The constant rain in the city suggests a post apocalyptic world and hence the sky is continuously dark due to the scorching of the sky by nuclear weapons. Love is non existent, showed through the relationship Deckard and Rachael share which is conveyed by the scene in which Deckard forces himself upon Rachael, violently, in an effort to show his love. Life is not valued in this world, expressed when Deckard brandishes a gun in a crowded street and shoots Zhora, using a close up shot of a woman’s bland, unresponsive face as Deckard points a gun at her. The replicants, being “more human than human”, value life and show human emotions which are not evident in the human population. Their juxtaposition with humans conveys how humanity has been lost and can be seen by the responder through the exaggeration of their deaths. In the 1980’s there were fears of large corporations becoming too powerful, and in BR, the have now become all powerful, presented through the omnipresence of advertising. Tyrell heard of Tyrell Co. lives in a Mayan temple-like building towering above the other buildings of the city, also conveying the power corporations hold over the people. This fact also gives sense to the quote “If you’re not police, you’re little people”, the police and corporations being literally higher than the public. Science and commerce are now valued over nature shown through Tyrell Co.’s motto, “Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell, more human than human is our motto.”. Replicants have been created as slaves to improve commerce. As in BNW, BR shows how nature has been forgotten and hence technology and scientific advancements have become all important. BNW shows nature marginalised to small areas to constitute commerce, where in BR, nature is artificially created for commerce. Human nature has been removed in both texts and shows how humans have severed their relationship with the natural world. The social contexts of Ridley Scott and Aldous Huxley have influenced the way nature has been presented in both texts. It has been distorted to emphasise the importance of restricting scientific control and the detrimental impact that humans have on nature. Any feedback would be nice. Constructive criticism would be valued. | |
topic: Essays | |
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| (The New) ECW - Extreme Crap Wrestling... | March 26, 2007, 11:00AM |
 by: Matticus |
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I write this after just witnessing something extremely (pun intended) upsetting while surfing my cable television. I see the ECW logo, I hear legend Joey Styles and Tazz commentating…but I see a huge ring. I see a huge crowd. I see a large arena. I SEE two steroid freaks having a poor ‘wrestling’ match. No ECW rules. Just a normal standard boring wrestling match. Bobby Laslow or whatever his name was. Powerslams the opponent British Bulldog style and gets the 1..2..3. I choked on my drink, literally. Did I JUST SEE THAT?!?!?!? ECW…someone just won by a power slam. Ok, this must be the first match on the card, maybe they’re both jobbers. But then not only did I choke on my drink I started to feel nauseous when this Bobby character was the ECW World Champion! Oh My GODDDDDDDDDDDD! Joey Styles eat your heart out. How much money did Vinny Mac pay you, you big sell out. How have the WWE got the audacity to call this ECW? This is the equivalent to getting Paul Heyman and ECW legends with E-C-’Dub’ hardcore fans and throwing excitement on them every week. ‘EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING’. Oh yes. The ECW come back by the WWE. When I first heard about this I was at first excited when I heard Paul Heyman would get full control and it will be at the classic ECW arenas. But rather expectedly it was awful. People have told me that Heyman only got a handful of creative control over this new ECW product. Talk about kicking a man in the bollocks. A man who deserves as much respect, indeed more respect than Vince himself. I’ve been a fan of wrestling for 20 years. As a young child I grew up with the WWF(E), when Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart etc. were in their prime. I was a major fan when I reached my teens. I had found WCW and ECW totally fascinating by competing against the WWF. It showed me that the WWF wasn’t as great as it proclaimed. I still watched WWF but I was a fanatic of ECW and WCW right up until their demise. By this time I had lost my love for wrestling. I didn’t ‘feel’ the same way about it anymore. Perhaps with WWF destroying its competitors there seemed no point. Also, after the end of the two smaller federations the WWF started to put on weaker shows, with weaker storylines, weaker characters. I know they weren’t competing for ratings. I know they didn’t have to put in as much effort as they previously had to but why waste such great opportunities? Buying out ECW and WCW gave the WWF the best roster of wrestlers ever. Did they use it to their advantage? No. A year after Invasion I stopped watching wrestling altogether. I stayed up late for another PPV (I live in the UK) and it was awful. Truly awful. I thought to myself ‘wrestling is dead’. I considered I had ‘grown up’ and that wrestling had been a child hood entertainment. But so is football and I still love that. It was definitely something to do with the state of wrestling. Through the years I’ve missed of wrestling I slowly kept up to date through some friends. And I was surprised the WWF were still using the old time wrestlers. It is funny how the new guys can not take their places. Perhaps it is to do with poor management? Brock Lesnar received the biggest push ever (even more than Goldberg) and he retired in his mid 20’s! Poor, poor, poor. In about 2005/2006 I started to show an interest in wrestling when I found TWC (The Wrestling Channel). It appealed to me. I did not know there were good smaller wrestling companies out there with such exposure. I instantly loved TNA, not only because it reminded me of my love for WCW, it also had my favourite wrestlers there. The likes of Raven and Jarrett. I also got to see new talent. AJ Styles, Chris Daniels and many more. You can instantly tell they are more entertaining than the body builders the WWF call ‘new talent’. Also TWC showed smaller promotions. ROH amazed me. How original! A quality WWF does NOT have. FWA, a U.K. promotion which isn’t stuck in 70’s. And MLW, the new ECW…Or so I thought. Despite this nostalgic time for me to get back into wrestling. It was short lived. Most of the smaller promotions folded. Only TNA grew but it is nowhere near competing the WWF. Perhaps if another Ted Turner came along then maybe. In the last year I’ve been tuning in and out of wrestling. Meanwhile enjoying the new range of DVD’s available. RVD’s One of a Kind and Ultimate Warrior’s story are awesome although I ignore the bad smell the WWF puts on them. I also see other DVD’s. WWF vs. WCW, an hour long ‘docu’ on the Monday night war. This was wrestling at its best. But no doubt it will be extremely biased. I’m still eager to get it for nostalgic reasons. Also the history of ECW is a must have for my collection. I’m not over reacting. This new version of ECW is EVERYTHING the old and great ECW was against. It makes me feel horrible. The WWE have turned ECW into the new version of ‘Sunday Night Heat’. Where jobbers collide. I must not be alone with this disgruntlement. Surely other fans like me can not bear to witness such crimes against wrestling? Oh how I would love to have Vince up against that charge. I could probably make a very convincing case. The poor ECW show is followed by WWE SmackDown. Thirty minutes have not impressed me, in fact I am cringing at this minute seeing two extremely dreadful gimmicks. Have they got twelve year olds writing the scripts now? I’m turning over to TWC as soon as possible to watch some REAL WRESTLING. (From a deeply upset and angry ‘x’ generation wrestling fan) | |
topic: Rants | |
[reply] [5 comments] |
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| New Features and T-Shirt Preview | March 16, 2007, 4:14AM |
 by: eon |
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Two new features have been added to the picture galleries: Re-Upload: You will notice a 're-upload' link that appears under each of your uploaded pictures when you manage your pictures in the control panel. Using a 're-upload' link will allow you to replace a picture without losing any of the comments that have already been posted to it or any other picture information (such as it's order number and description). This would be handy, for example, if you had a new version of a picture to upload but people had already added a ton of comments to the old picture that you didn't want to lose. Picture Comment Replies: Clicking a 'reply' link under a comment on one of your pictures will let you write a note that will appear directly under the picture comment. For example: Suppose someone posts a comment on one of your pictures that says, "OMG U R SO EFFING FAT!!" You can now reply and your words will appear directly underneath their rude remark, allowing you to tell them off succinctly, "OMG I AM SO NOT FAT! I ONLY ATE 9 CHOCOLATE CREME BURRITOS AND A FEW CHEETOS THAT DAY SO STFU!!! AND MAYBE LIKE HALF A THING OF FRIES BUT THAT DOESN'T COUNT SO STFU!!!" Your answer will show up underneath their comment as "[your name] replies:" Up to this point, hitting the 'reply' link on a picture comment just sent a reply to that person's profile. Not really as useful in my opinion, since it's doubtful that anyone else would actually see what you had to say about their comment. If you do want to reply to someone's profile from their comment on one of your pictures, just click their avatar. T-Shirt Preview: I'm trying out a new place called Good Storm that does on demand t-shirt printing and delivery for a very reasonable price. Kind of like Cafe Press, except they charge in dollars and cents instead of in arms, legs and left nuts. I'm still thinking about different designs but I do have one posted up that I think looks pretty snazzy. If you're so inclined, you can check it out and tell me what you think. I am not yet recommending this product until I receive the t-shirt I ordered myself for inspection. Here it is if you'd like to take a look. Thanks, guys and gals. You make it happen. | |
topic: Site News | |
[reply] [35 comments] |
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| Consumer culture is a threat to progressive change! | March 7, 2007, 9:41PM |
 by: SeigneurVoland666 |
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Consumer Culture is a threat to progressive change Current mood: stressed Category: Life By Punkerslut [Author's Notes: Started on Monday, May 15, 2006. Completed on Sunday, May 28, 2006.] There is no doubt that there is a great antagonism against consumer culture on the part of all Leftists, Socialists, Libertarians, Communists, and Anarchists -- in short, every group that can be called a class of reformer or revolutionary. Our reasoning is simple: there are things in life that have more value, meaning, and purpose than the manufactured products of a lifeless and mechanized society. Those of us who are convinced of this truth thoroughly enough will do what we can to escape the tyranny that is produced in the corporate-dominated, consumer culture. Many have escaped to the bosom of nature, taking a Thoreau-like approach to the question of "how should we live life?" Some have adopted an extremely open and loving sexuality as a means achieving fulfillment in a world that's too afraid to trust good will. Others have traveled the path of the old psychedelic guru, ingesting mind-altering chemicals as though they were the nutrients necessary for a fully developed and mentally healthy psychology. We are the artists who spit on artist organizations, the writers who mastermind brilliant ways to break grammar rules, the intoxicated friend at a party who admits what everyone is too afraid to say, the bombers of dams and the conceivers of boycotts; we are everything short of a complete and total revolution. There's a rag-tag, unregimented army of rebels, who are willing to spend their lives proving that absence of consumer culture doesn't mean absence of all culture. The development of real culture is only possible when the individual challenges their environment and makes demands on themselves to find the absolute and unadulterated truth -- that is, real cultural revolution is only possible when the individual doubts what they are told. A fair definition of Consumer Culture would be: relying on the owners of industry to produce for the people the main subject of their lives, that is, producing a culture for the people that revolves around consuming the products of this economy. The difficulty that many people have with this is that the interests of the ruling class are not quite the same as those of the ruled class. Corporations, such as Starbucks, WalMart, Nike, Adidas, Macintosh, and Shell, all manufacture their products in countries that exploit the working class. Many of the workers labor twelve to sixteen hour days in dirty, unclean factories, under threat of a violent military regime or the agonizing poverty created by Capitalist, Free Trade, and embargo policies of the United States and other nations. To trust those who created such a global calamity would be a great mistake. Trusting them to create culture for us, to create something beautiful, unique, and personally challenging to fill our lives -- to trust them to complete this task is only to make ourselves the slaves to their media. What concentrated economic powers have done to satisfy their interests has already been demonstrated. To trust them to make for us the meaning of life would just mean that we're subjecting ourselves to the mental shackles they so desperately wish to put on us. The message they give to you dominates conversations, thoughts, secret dreams, and painful aspirations. Social control is established in this means by Consumer Culture. One of the prime indicators of Consumer Culture is television. Mega-corporations fight with each other over the will of the people, by developing newer and more captivating advertisements, by dumbing down plot lines for television shows so they capture more viewers, special interests get their views in and the public just follows along. That is why television has become the daemon in the nightmares of every Freethinker. The History Channel, which is hosted by an American corporation, rarely displays the United States government in any negative light. The show Cops never shows a police officer failing to capture his victim. The plot lines for most sitcoms revolve around things like money, romance, popularity, and other themes that easily capture attention but always fail to plant something meaningful. Television programming has gone so far as to place advertisements as a part of the plot. Here, in the living room of every family, there rests a machine that is constantly feeding ideas to a listening audience. The plot lines, the themes, the ideals, the suggestions, hidden implications and subliminal advertising, all of it is to create a grasp of the way people think and act. By their means of massive distribution, the media has molded the opinions of billions of people. And who is it that holds the keys to this uninterrupted stream of suggestions to the public? It is anyone who has the money. That is the sole requirement that is necessary to reaching the minds of the public: who possesses the wealth. Consumer Culture will naturally incite a feeling of loathing and disgust when investigated by any independent thinker. Moreover than its innate failure to produce meaning or purpose beyond our immediate atmosphere, it is a detriment to something else: progressive change. This phrase progressive change is a very general term, meaning when society reforms, revolves, or adaptates to a new condition that is more beneficial to civilization. While every person is always in a state of perpetual evolution, sometimes steering towards good, sometimes falling towards bad, always in flux -- while we are always changing and progressing through life, the term progressive change here indicates a change in our customs, our laws, our culture, our ideals, our way of life, as it pertains to us collectively. It is a matter of interrelation. By indicating to my brothers and sisters what I believe should be the order by which we adhere to collectively, I am making a position on the matter of social progress. How can we change the ways we interact in a way that increases our benefits of working together in a mutual and cooperative environment? That is what progressive change means. Why Consumer Culture would be viewed by progressive revolutionaries as a threat is obvious. By directing the attention and the awareness of the public on a lifestyle that requires playing by the rules of the system, social and political change stagnates. The thoughts and ideas of the people in this society are focused on the issues that the corporations want them to be focused on. Profit is the sole interest of those broadcasting the message of Consumer Culture; so one can only truly expect to see a constant barrage of suggestions and implications on how to behave, what to buy, how to treat other people, who to admire, and what to believe on the matter of government, economy, society, and culture. All of these will be profit-driven. What is the message that it brings? It demands that people consume: a big car means that it's easier to sleep at night, a stylish jacket will attract the attention of the opposite sex, absolute true love is only one phone call away, you can make a million in three and a half days by following this seven-step plan, peace of mind can be obtained with four easy payments, consume, consume, consume. The immediate interest of a true consumer, then, is a self-interest that can only be satisfied by the products of this corporate mechanism. It is true that greed has become nature's way ever since the dawn of the idea of property. But our corporate system has greatly refined humanity's taste for elegance, luxury, and pleasure. In the Capitalist system, a person can get just about anything they want, so long as their pockets run deep enough. Such wonderful and pleasant schemes befall sleeping minds. The individual's interests then are focused on getting the wealth necessary to satisfy their consumption; they will be more willing to steal, to take advantage of the misfortune of others, to befriend and betray, to manipulate and deceive, to exploit the good will of another for wealth. All consumers serve this social order as employees and workers. They all trade their hours and their strength to labor in exchange for the wealth necessary to keep up their lifestyle. Consumer Culture's effect then is to create division and disorder among the public, to let their blood and drain their strength. And its secondary effect is to make it a goal for us to serve the financial dominion with our employment. Consumer Culture is bent on the competitive spirit. It asks that people throw their strength and energy against each other in order to achieve and accomplish. By seeking their satisfaction through the goods and services of their corporate overseers, the first goal will be to accumulate money to procure these substances. The impulse of greed becomes second nature. The person is always either engaged in some manipulation of their comrades or constantly under suspicion of the intentions of their siblings. Targets of property crime generally tend not to be the most wealthy. Those who steal from their fellow humans tend to be just as poor as their victims. Consumer culture has tempted daemons, and they are coming out. This system of free enterprise only asks individuals to seek and benefit from the misfortune of others. In a negotiation, if the individual with the strongest need is usually at the whim of the other's mercy. In a situation where someone has a strong enough need, they will enter into an agreement regardless of the terms; this, in effect, creates a slavery of one in favor of the other. So it has become the will and the nature of our Capitalist society to seek the misfortune of others. To make others need you so that you can satisfy your own self-interest at their slavery. That was the original idea of Capitalism. It was practiced by the coal barons who shut down their mines just to create an artificial winter in the cities, making the price go up along with profits. It was an idea expanded upon by all of the companies that worked to dominate their industry, gnashing against each other in the competitive field of business. And in its final state, this idea produces a way of life for people where they need the corporate product to satisfy their sense of meaning. This is the way our social order has been organized since the existence of property. But only with the emergence of Consumer Culture has it become so cutthroat in its tendency. Everyone is praying for the misfortune of others, only so that the newly arising need of others would be the stepping stone to their wealth. In such a world, all men and women are constantly seeking to exploit each other, never willing to trust, totally afraid to share, and certainly terrified of the idea of putting energy, will, and strength towards a collective effort. The first effect of Consumer Culture is apparent: it creates a lust for worldly possessions that makes individuals hurt each other. Beyond this, it asks that, in order to satisfy the interest of the corporate product, we must exchange our labor and time. Our desire for the products of these corporations was manufactured by the marketing and advertising industry, feeling that it could create a sense of willingness to trust, desire, and protect the corporate world and its relationship to us -- that is, Consumer Culture. In the United States, we labor forty hours a week to earn the money necessary to satisfy these wants. A workday will consist of one to two hours preparation before work, to put on our uniform and eat. Public transit could take up to an hour to get you to where you work. Eight hours fly by. Another hour to get home. Twelve hours of the working class, blue-collar laborer are spent just for an eight hour payday. The modern inconveniences leave us with three hours to ourselves before we dive in to unconsciousness like we were dying. So much is sacrificed; we lose so much of our time, our energy and our strength in this mad rush to serve the corporate interest. Millions of people are in debt, because their working lifestyle spoiled their patience and turned them in to mindless animals seeking to cure their pain -- to cure it with the corporate product. The debt consolidation industry continues to reap its profits as payday loan stores pop up alongside funeral parlors and pawn shops in the ghettos. It has always been the intention of the lords of industry to make the people need them -- to force them into a situation where they would agree to the terms of any contract. Consumer Culture is simply the sophistication of this method. By controlling all forms of media and all information, corporations are capable of gaining more social control; and this is accomplished by making the people need the system more, by changing their attitudes. With all of our time and efforts sacrificed to this monolithic beast, we have few moments to ourselves. Those few moments are spent trying to kill the pain that came with this type of lifestyle. We don't read old books about philosophy and political theory. We don't admire the ideas of Locke, Machiavelli, and Bentham, nor do we appreciate the poetry of Shelley, the prose of Thoreau, or the written word of Paine. Consumer Culture has buried the working public and it has left them with no way to get out and no chance to plan or plot for their escape. When people are put into these type of oppressive situations, where so much must be given to live, where so many sacrifices are made to appease our constant inner turmoil, in this type of world situation, people will be bitter, cynical, and hopeless. They will turn against each other with ferocity, sometimes to seek out vengeance or mastermind an exploitation; after living in this type of conditioned society, we seek to lessen our pain by causing the same misery on others. And anyone who is capable of surviving without making the same sacrifices as us is instantly detested and hated, as though we were xenophobic to outsiders. Can you imagine trying to develop a revolutionary and progressive movement in this type of atmosphere in Consumer Culture? If you asked your coworker to unionize with you, they might tell you that they can't afford to go on strike because they're still making payments on their new car. Or they might have no idea what the principle of solidarity means, or what a true working class ethic might entail. Eleven to twelve hours of their day is spent in either preparing or going to work or actually laboring. What's left over isn't spent in intensive thought on social issues or matters of political justice. The other three to four hours left over is used in a mad rush by the citizen to alleviate the pain that was built up over the day. It's the kind of pain that comes from doing thousands of mindless, repetitive tasks in a single day. The kind of misery that boils from supervisors and managers treating demanding obedience and respect constantly. It is the stress from customer service jobs and bruises that come from physical labor employment. When work ends, people run from their place of employment, seeking refuge in some escapist, fantasy-inducing activity. The next three to four hours used to help them forget what was necessary to get to this point of the day. Drug addictions become favorite pastimes in this type of environment. By teaching people to need and satisfy their needs, Corporate Culture turns people into self-destructive zombies who serve the interest of the wealthy class. Like a person inflicted with a burn wound, the employee released from his labor in capitalism seeks to relieve his pain immediately and quickly. And the only cure for the suffering caused in this life is constantly advertised, on television, radio, buses, billboards, and a million other places where billions of eyes will be watching. They cause our pains and then are quick to profit off of our headful of suffering. To so control the lives of the common people, by forcing them into eight-hour daily slavery, by dominating their media with a pro-consumption message, by manufacturing these conditions that put chains on the wrists of every person -- this is real tyranny. Capitalism can produce nothing else, and this Consumer Culture is just the most refined and sophisticated form of wage-slavery in any post-industrial part of the world. They ask us to seek satisfaction in cooperation with each other in order to secure their interests. That is the principle effect of Consumer Culture. As Libertarian-Communists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, and Revolutionary Socialists, whatever name we decide to call ourselves, we must oppose Consumer Culture, and any other chains that the oppressors attempt to put on us and our fellows. For Life, Punkerslut | |
topic: Life | |
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