Poisonous Girl

Firefox 3 Release

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:48:45 GMT

I downloaded the beta version last night and loved it, but now when I try to download the real Firefox 3, final version, it shows up as Firefox 2. WTF?

Update: Oh, great, they finally put up 3.0. Hoorah!

Rants, Movies and Randomness

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:16:25 GMT

I tried convincing Will to start a blog and start posting his very interesting viewpoints. He's a very opinionated guy, but apparently doesn't like writing--yet most of his opinions he writes to me? Silly man!

Mom is driving me crazy. It's incredibly hot outside, and she wants me to help her build a planter. Alright, that's fine, if I have to. The problem is, I wanted to wear a spaghetti strap top, because it's well, hot. But apparently wearing a tanktop in our backyard (which is in the middle of nowhere) is too whoreish, so I have to wear pants and a T-shirt. ....Crazy? Yes. She's also been a hassle to deal with while I'm trying to find an apartment. I found a very affordable apartment downtown, and for some reason she is doing everything she can to make sure I don't get it. They didn't list a phone number, just an address, so I wanted to leave a note. So what did she do? Say no, and drive off. She wants me to pay more on minimum wage for an apartment that she likes? How fucked up is that?

My dad, who has pretty much almost never spent any money on me for seventeen years (insurance, clothes, school fees, etc, have always had to be paid by mom) is suddenly acting very nice and offering to help pay for a lot. I'm lost.

I just saw The Happening on Saturday, and I was blown away. The movie is just awesome. I know it got alot of bad reviews (talk about 20% fresh tomatoes!) but the movie seemed perfectly done to me--the characters were interesting and realistic, and even the ones that had only a little movie time were well done. The entire movie had me on the edge of my seat, and laughing nervously at the (good) jokes. It gave me a great deal to think about afterwards. I'd liken it to Day After Tomorrow, I Am Legend, and The Birds. Nature taking revenge on humanity. I loved it!

Personal Musings

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:46:48 GMT

As a continuation of my brief comment on blogging, I'd like to say why the internet and blogging in general mean so much to me. I don't mean that my blogging personally means a lot to me, it really is just a place for me to chatter. I mean the blogosphere, it means a lot to me. As someone who is extremely quiet and shy in real life, I tend to be a pushover and I rarely speak my own opinions. I just go with the flow. Online, I take on a completely different personality--I'm outspoken, I'm pushy and sometimes bitchy, I'm very honest and quite hyperactive. The internet and blogging is more than freedom of speech to me--it's freedom of being. I'm not a strong person. Offline, I'm too afraid to be who I want to be half of the time, I lie because I'm afraid to speak the truth, I can't look anyone in the eye and I agree with everyone to save myself trouble. I'm ashamed of it. Will is the only person I've ever been able to be completely myself with offline, and I am incredibly grateful for it.

Anyways. Blogging. In the past, people have always had to speak as a group. We didn't have the ability to speak out loudly enough to be heard by more than a few people unless we stood together and as a group. You had to meld your beliefs into that of the group so that the general message would be heard. The bloggers of today would be left speaking their radical ideas to only a small group of people, and almost no one would hear them scream what had to be screamed.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet and the blogosphere, the INDIVIDUAL speaks, not the GROUP. You can whisper your ideas and the world will hear you. You can scream your ideas and the UNIVERSE will hear you! The individual, the id of all of us, each and every one of us has become a god in our own right. We create our own little worlds where we can say whatever we please without fear of reprisal, usually, and we can look at the worlds of others and debate freely. It is something akin, perhaps, to the world of Ancient Greece, where philosophers could almost freely debate and be heard by a wide audience.

Now instead of an auditorium, we speak our ideas to the entire world, and I'll be damned if I let anyone censor us without a fight.

Blogging, Love, and Life

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:21:37 GMT

I've forgotten how much fun blogging is! Since I've returned to the internet, I've restarted a few blogs, worked on a roleplaying NWN2 server, and jump started my hopefully future career in journalism.

Will, my new boyfriend, will be moving in with me when I hopefully get a new apartment. Will really is a dream guy, and perfect for me. Sensitive, caring, respectful, honest, mature, very smart, a native French speaker!, and funny. And though other girls might not agree with me that being nerdy, dominant, an atheist and liberal also makes him perfect, I do. :) He's fine with being a home caretaker--he doesn't mine cleaning around the house and cooking while I work, and both of us feel we are equals.

I'm kind of scared about telling my parents about him. As far as they know I've never even had a crush, let alone a boyfriend. Most of my family, especially my dad, are very hardcore, traditional conservative Christians. The fact that he has no love for America won't make them happy, either. He's really nervous about meeting them, though if they don't like him, too bad. I've never been a person who does something just because her family wants it, or won't do something if her family disagrees. It's my own choice, and if they don't like it, they can go fuck themselves.

The idea of moving out and being completely independent is pretty scary. I'm fairly lazy and distracted, and I've never liked responsibility. I'm a huge slob and don't have a head for economics or anything like that. Hopefully my friend Ester, who will be living with me and also working, and Will will (heh) both help me out, even if its just emotional support.

I'm really excited about voting. I'm definitely voting Obama. Thank god I'll be 18 in July, just before voting starts. I'm just twitching to register!

Iraq Doesn't Want Us

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:00:40 GMT

While our government likes to toot it's own horn about how much it cares about democracy and the people of Iraq, obviously it doesn't. After the democratically elected lawmakers of Iraq have told us that they want the U.S. military forces out of their country, our government has ignored their decision. We think we know best.

The article says:

A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and Iraq war opponent, released excerpts from a letter he was handed by Iraqi parliamentarians laying down conditions for the security pact that the Bush administration seeks with Iraq.

The proposed pact has become increasingly controversial in Iraq, where there have been protests against it. It has also drawn criticism from Democrats on the presidential election campaign trail in the United States, who say President George W. Bush is trying to dictate war policy after he leaves office.

The signatures represented just over half the membership of Iraq's parliament, said Delahunt, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman.

Two Iraqi lawmakers whose parties were listed as signatories testified to Delahunt's panel on Wednesday that U.S. troops should leave Iraq, and that talks on the long-term security pact should be postponed until after they are gone.

Khalaf Al-Ulayyan, founder of the National Dialogue Council, said bilateral talks on a long-term security deal should be shelved until American troops leave -- and until there is a new government in Washington.

Republicans are already blaming Democrats for their mistakes

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:34:59 GMT

From my political blog, still trying to decide which one I'd rather use as my main blog...I like the features here but have more readers there.

On liberal comic/blog I Drew This, the author "Liberal Eagle" (who I feel a great deal of respect for) in December posted a blog about how whoever gets elected president, if a Democrat, will have to deal with being held accountable for the Republican mistakes of the last eight years.

Already it's happening. Mary Lyon of the Huffington Post writes:

I would never have thought there'd be any greater crimes than those of George W. Bush, nor any villain greater. I'm wrong. And no, it's not Dick Cheney, either, or anything he's perpetrated. Nor any of their colleagues.

It's Nancy Pelosi, and her colleagues, and what they seem quite literally hell-bent on doing.

....

Nancy Pelosi is the Neville Chamberlain of this day, in this country. She and her colleagues in the 110th Congress will likely be remembered by history in dramatically more disturbing ways than they had ever wanted or imagined. Some constitutional scholars have historians beat -- they've already arrived at that conclusion. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has already warned that history will look very harshly on those Democrats who did nothing to hold the worst criminals ever to blight the Executive Branch accountable for anything they've perpetrated. Failing to follow through on the 35 Articles of Impeachment as presented by Representative Dennis Kucinich and cosponsored by colleague Robert Wexler has put a permanent mark on Pelosi's political soul, and on her record. And she's not just failing to follow through on even one of these impeachment resolutions, she's actively discouraging and suppressing them.

Wow. Just wow. It's sad that people who were not involved are getting blamed vehemently, when yes they have not been helpful to the cause of bringing Bush down. But who's the real 'Neville Chamberlain' here? The American people.

If Nancy Pelosi is so responsible, aren't we the American people just as responsible? Most of us have sat, complacent in front of our Faux News, willing to listen to any lies hammered into our heads, no matter how unbelievable, and ignore truths. We have been unwilling to stand up for horrifying breaches of the Constitution. If anyone should be blamed, it should be us, the American people.

I'm sorry, world.

Current.com

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:04:58 GMT

I've become semi-addicted to an opensource newscast called Current. Anyone can post news and their opinions on the news there, and news gets put on the front page and on TV depending on how popular it is, although editors can bump stuff up if its breaking news or the like. People can also post their own 'pods', kind of like mini-documentaries. I'm hoping to make my own pod about a family friend of mine who had some serious injustices committed to her by the child custody courts...and it's not just her, it's other mothers across the country as well. A friend of mine is going to help me out, hopefully. I'm still worried about my apartment situation and Will, my boyfriend. I'm hoping hoping hoping we can work something out and he won't be kicked on the streets.

Well hello again.

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:06:50 GMT

I doubt anyone's going to see this but I may as well post something.

I decided I may as well try coming back to Livejournal...alot of things in my life have changed since I disappeared, though I didn't really communicate much with anyone here so I doubt anyone has noticed. :)

I broke up with that asshole, Craig/Mavrik, after finding out he was cheating on me pretty much our entire relationship, and after his verbal abuse had gone on long enough...I graduated early and bummed around the house for a while, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I ended up working on a Neverwinter Nights 2 roleplaying server, founding it, building most of its areas and lore and now handing it over to others because too much is going on in my life. I'm going to be moving out and trying to start college and get an apartment, pretty scary stuff. I have a new boyfriend, who is such a sweetheart. We have a dom/sub relationship (don't ask if you don't know), but he is a great deal more respectful, honest, caring and decent than any guy I've met. The worst fight we've gotten into is both of us going emo because we're afraid we've upset the other. Funny stuff. I'm terrified with worry about him -- he's going homeless in nine months, so I'm trying to help him out. I really love him. I'm going to study Journalism and hopefully move to Canada. I'm also going to finally be able to vote.

Voting Obama! Hell yes!

OMG FINAL FANTASY IS MY GOD

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 23:50:49 GMT

hooray stuff!

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:28:04 GMT

go on my myspace bitches. the id thing at the end is wonderland_was_poisoned n shit. I update more often on there -_-

lalalala. at least craig has ONE other friend tehre besides me and ester :D

haha im messin with you criag :P at least I dont go and have you believing silly things that slowly and surely throw me deeper into the pits of madness o____o

Hey all!

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 21:49:18 GMT

How long has it been since I posted? Well, I just got back from my driving lesson, I actually did really good, but I almost got into an accident! Some jerk in a red car sped right in front of me, and I had to slam the brakes, I was INCHES away from their car! I got to honk the horn tho :)

I LOVE YOU CRAIG!! *huggles and kissles*

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 06:10:56 GMT

Craig and I got everything worked out! Everythings great now *huggles craigy-bear* I'm happiest I've been all summer, cept school starts Monday and I left my backpack at dad's :(

I'm hungry.

God I hate Ann Coulter! Each and every one of her books is all this:

I mean, come on dumbshit, if liberals hated America so much, why would they LIVE HERE?! Why would they be PRO CHOICE and PRO FREEDOM OF MARRIAGE?!?!

You crackwhore.

Questions to ponder

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:10:36 GMT

1. If you suspected you were deluded, how would you find out for sure?

2. Are humans the product of a skilled or unskilled designer?

3. Would an omnipotent being need to THINK in the way that people understand it? Or is thinking necessary for a timeless, indestructable being whose preferences are the same as reality?

4. Why would God be so unclear about what book or books he authored?

5. Is conciousness anything more than a feedback loop, a continual process of imagining, acting, observing the impact of an ation, and imagining again with new information?

6. The dictionary defines "faith" as belief without evidence. It defines "stupidity" as unreasoned thinking. Is belief without evidence a form of unreasoned thinking?

7. Can the impact of your actions rippling into the future be considered an immortal soul?

8. Could atheists and believers accept the same definition of god?

Taken from "The Religion War" by Scott Adams. After reading it, my answers are: you can't, unskilled, no, he didnt author, no, yes, yes, yes

Moment of zen

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 05:24:22 GMT

More distractions from life...

Dear Satan Claus – Devourer of Children’s Souls,

This year, I have been a very passive aggressive little advertising tampon. I have compulsively pillaged, and I have often helped my mommy’s “special friend” with their pyramid schemes. And I always say thank you, which makes me seem like I care, and so I deserve lots of age-inappropriate pants this year!

Please bring all this stuff for me and the people in my life: For my mommy, please bring daddy’s testicles in a vise. For my daddy, please bring a new topaz-studded ass plug. For my big brother, please bring Barbie. For my doggy, please bring breath mints. Oh – and for my case worker, please bring some worthless tchotchkes.

Now about me! Please bring me all of the Spongebob Squarepants toilet paper, and front row tickets to Eminem – plus backstage passes so I can get airborne Chlamydia! Oh, and please don’t forget to bring my amputee Afghan orphan. But if you can’t, just remember that more than anything Santa, what I really really want is just $100,000,000!

Anyway, I hope you like the eight-ball I left out for you.

Breathlessly,

Yvette

PS: Please say Merry Christmas to Ralph, the heartless Elfin slavemaster.

PPS: Oh yeah, and remember God? He has been a really perverted vivisection hobbyist all year long and doesn’t deserve any Christmas presents. So please don’t forget to put ebola in their stocking. Thanks!

Write your own at http://www.chickenhead.com/stuff/santa/index.asp

Hey Harvey!

It's me, Yvette! Remember? We met at Chuck Norris's jacuzzi. How are things going over at Disney? Oh, that's delish! So, I wanted to turn you on to this project I'm repping. Between you and me, it's going to be a huge Rober Ebert mindfuck! I mean, this is going to be the biggest thing since “Freddie Got Fingered”! So like, squint your mind, have a shot, sit back, and picture this:

This movie is “American Pie” meets “Gandhi” meets “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. With a little bit of “Legally Blonde” thrown in for good measure! It's a love story about a dog who meets a she-male. Then humps her. Then there's a twist involving a transsexual with a heart of nougat. But it's ALSO an action film - with a blind toddler, a SEGWAY scooter chase, and three climaxes in The Chicken Ranch, Antartica, and on top of a bedridden 800 pound man. It has action, romance, and SEX. There are lots of steamy love scenes in the trunk of a circus elephant involving a wooden dildo. It's sticky, and searingly stimulating. We felt the movie also needed a racial subtext, so there's a small part or two for a magical Negro. But really, this is a family movie. It's about one family's struggle to overcome a searing case of hemorrhoids and then a heartfelt lesson is learned. The ending has a mass suicide, a song and dance number, a stirring courtroom speech and a heartwarming sense of spine-tingling terror. We don't have a script yet, but we have a great duet with Barbra Streisand and Kiss. We think Tom DeLay, Rosie O'Donnell and ME would be perfect for this movie! Maybe Jude Law can have a two-minute cameo as the Academy-award winning English guy that gives the movie integrity! We call it “2 Hour Toy Commercial”. It'll make $500,000,000 domestically and $500,000,000 internationally. Oh – and this movie will test really well with white tweens.

Write your own at http://www.chickenhead.com/stuff/moviepitch/index.asp

You Are 96% Bipolar

You have some serious ups and downs, maybe to the point of endangering your own life. Consult a doctor to see if you may truly have bipolar disorder.

Are You Bipolar?

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to good manners and elegance. In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved. You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage something you've always wanted... though you haven't really thought about it. In this moment, you think of love as something you can't get or discard anytime. You're feeling unworthy of love.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Your Ideal Marriage Proposal Is

After dinner at your favorite restaurant, at the spot where you first kissed.

What's Your Ideal Marriage Proposal?

What Your Sleeping Position Says

You are secretly sensitive, but you often put up a front. Shy and private, you yearn for security. You take relationships slowly. You need lots of reassurances before you can trust.

What Does Your Sleeping Position Say About You?

Everything is so true...*sigh* Now to go and waste more time...MONDAY I go to school, so great I've wasted the entire week and lost my chance to talk to Craig. UGH.

Vicarious

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 05:10:05 GMT

Major Victory got taken off Who Wants to be a Superhero. Stan Lee cried while he talked to his daughter and she told him she thought he was a hero

Everythings so depressing lately :(

This song is so true:

I like the TV
'cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavour
It happens to be like;
Killed by the husband
Drowned by the ocean
Shot by his own son
He knew of the poison in his tea
Yet he chose to comply
That's my kinda story
It's no fun 'til someone dies

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother
Holds her child
Watches him die
Hands to the sky crying
Why, oh why?
'cause I need to watch things die
From a distance

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all feel it too, don't lie

Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit it?

We won't give pause until the blood is flowing
Neither the brave nor bold
The writers of stories sold
We won't give pause until the blood is flowing

I need to watch things die
From a good safe distance

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all feel the same so
Why can't we just admit it?

Blood like rain come down
Drawn on grave and ground

Part vampire
Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Stare at the transmitter
Sing to the death rattle

La, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie

Incredulous at best your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out
Your head believes it give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again
The universe is hostile
So impersonal
Devour to survive, so it is
So it's always been

We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:23:36 GMT

I feel...like I'm gonna die...or at least want to...

'whatever'

...

The Coven Project

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:57:28 GMT

I need to get shit off my mind so I started working on a forum I had been working on a while ago. Basically, a Wiccan group for beginners and experts wishing to share spells, stories, ideas and help.

No one in yet T.T

http://z11.invisionfree.com/The_Coven_Project/

Jesus

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:03:03 GMT

I'm starting to wonder what the fucking point is anymore. I mean, why do I even try to make an attempt at life? It's not like anything I say or do is good enough, it's not like I can't say or do anything without hurting someone or pissing someone off. I can't even exist without ruining someone else's fucking life. I am so sick and tired. I'm starting to think hermitude might be the answer. No matter how much I want to be with my friends or bf or parents or teachers, maybe everyone else in the fucking world would be better fucking off if I just died. They sure make me feel that way.

I've screwed things up again.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

FUCK.

I taste like nuclear waste

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 05:32:41 GMT

I taste like Nuclear Waste. Delicious.

Tasting like nuclear waste is a good thing - nothing bites me, nothing eats me, few things even touch me. I appreciate the solitude my harsh exterior brings. What Flavour Are You?

"Lies" blue: amy lee red: male singer

Bound at every limb by my shackles of fear
Sealed with lies through so many tears
Lost from within, pursuing the end
I fight for the chance to be lied to again

Says...
"You will never be strong enough
You will never be good enough
You were never conceived in love
You will not rise above"

[Chorus:]
They'll never see
I'll never be
I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger
Burning deep inside of me

But through my tears breaks a blinding light
Birthing a dawn to this endless night
Arms outstretched, awaiting me
An open embrace upon a bleeding tree

Rest in me and I'll comfort you
I have lived and I died for you
Abide in me and I vow to you
I will never forsake you

[Chorus]
[Chorus]

Rest in me and I'll comfort you
I have lived and I died for you
Abide in me and I vow to you
I will never forsake you

[Chorus]

Me and Ester!

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:57:26 GMT

Ester, if you ever DO read my journal, I made you a gift =3

It was kinda annoying having to learn how to draw Easter's character XP

OK. Rant.

So, for Sunday to Tuesday I have to go to my dad's house because my cousin and my aunt on Kathy's side are staying over. OK, fine. Whatever.

So the cousin turns out to be a total brat and prep. The kinda girl whose gonna grow up to be a preppy whore like all the girls at school. She steals my Zen (mp3 player) and we only barely catch her with it, she refuses to play like a normal person at foosball (ie throwing the hard balls at me, grabbing my side's pole things and ramming me with them, refusing to acknowledge the count 34 goals I made, and claiming she won with 3 unfair goals), leaves horrible Britney Spears songs sung by her on my Zen, screams about everything, cries when I push her elbow out of my face and claims I "beat her", steals my soda and spills it all over me and the rental car, claiming it was me, etc, etc.

So, how old do you think this lovely girl, Bridget is? Guess. Come on.

TWELVE.

And dad told me I need to be nicer to relatives afterwards.

Jeezus.

Rant over.

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:52:01 GMT

A Whore That Sitteth on Many Waters

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."
-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

"The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God."
-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series

The article is from here

In other news, the pictures here are awesome, especially if you're a Colossus fan. Be sure to check out 109oh, 099mm, and 261dl.

That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America’s all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go beserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower. Jesus -- who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe -- merely speaks and "the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle." In the book Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses" Even as the riders’ tongues are melting in their mouths and they are being wide open gutted by God’s own hand, the poor damned horses are getting the same treatment. Sort of a divinely inspired version of "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."

This may be some of the bloodiest hate fiction ever published, but it is also what tens of millions of Americans believe is God’s will. It is approximately what everyone in the congregation sitting around me last Sunday at my brother’s church believes. Or some version of it. How can anyone acquire and hold such notions? Answer: The same way you got yours and I got mine. Conditioning. From family and school and society, but from within a different American caste than the one in which you were raised. And from things stamped deep in childhood -- such as coming home terrified to an empty house.

One September day when I was in the third grade I got off the school bus and walked up the red dust powdered lane to my house only to find no one there. The smudgy white front door of the old frame house stood open. My footsteps on the unpainted gray porch creaked in the fall stillness. With increasing panic, I went through every room, and then ran around the outside crying and sobbing in the grip of the most horrific loneliness and terror. I believed with all my heart that The Rapture had come and that all my family had been taken up to heaven leaving me alone on earth to face God’s terrible wrath. As it turned out they were at the neighbor’s house scarcely 300 yards down the road, and returned in a few minutes. But it took me hours to calm down. I dreamed about it for years afterward.

Since then I have spoken to others raised in fundamentalist families who had the same childhood experience of coming home and thinking everyone had been "raptured up." The Rapture -- the time when God takes up all saved Christians before he lets loose slaughter, pestilence and torture upon the earth -- is very real to people in whom its glorious and grisly promise was instilled and cultivated from birth. Even those who escape fundamentalism agree its marks are permanent. We may no longer believe in being raptured up, but the grim fundamentalist architecture of the soul stands in the background of our days. There is an apocalyptic starkness that remains somewhere inside us, one that tinges all of our feelings and thoughts of higher matters. Especially about death, oh beautiful and terrible death, for naked eternity is more real to us than to you secular humanists. I get mail from hundreds of folks like me, the different ones who fled and became lawyers and teachers and therapists and car mechanics, dope dealers and stockbrokers and waitresses. And every one of them has felt that thing we understand between us, that skulls piled clear to heaven redemption through absolute self worthlessness and you ain’t shit in the eyes of God so go bleed to death in some dark corner stab in the heart at those very moments when we should have been most proud of ourselves. Self-hate. That thing that makes us sabotage our own inner happiness when we are most free and operating as self-realizing individuals. This kind of Christianity is a black thing. It is a blood religion, that willingly gives up sons to America’s campaigns in the Holy Land, hoping they will bring on the much-anticipated war between good and evil in the Middle East that will hasten the End Times. Bring Jesus back to Earth.

Whatever the case, tens of millions of American fundamentalists, despite their claims otherwise, read and absorb the all-time best selling Left Behind book series as prophesy and fact. How could they possibly not after being conditioned all their lives to accept the End Times as the ultimate reality? We are talking about a group of Americans 20% of whose children graduate from high school identifying H2O as a cable channel. Children who, like their parents and grandparents, come from that roughly half of all Americans who can approximately read, but are dysfunctionally literate to the extent they cannot grasp any textual abstraction or overall thematic content.

Most of my family and their church friends (mainly the women) have read at least some of the Left Behind series and if pressed they will claim they understand that it is fiction. But anyone who has heard fundies around the kitchen table discussing the books knows the claim is pure bullshit. "Well, they do get an awful lot of stuff exactly right," they admit. Beyond that, most fundamentalists delight in seeing their beliefs as "persecuted Christians" become best sellers "under the guise of fiction," as the Pentecostal assistant who used to work with me put it. "They show the triumph of the righteous over those who persecute us for our faith in God." Fer cryin out loud, Christianity is scarcely a persecuted belief system in this country, or in need of a guise to protect itself. Year after year some 60% of Americans surveyed say they believe the Book of Revelations will come true and about 40% believe it will come true in their lifetimes. This from the 50% of Americans who, according to statistics, seldom if ever buy a book.

Fetishizing of the End Times as a spectacular gore-fest visited upon on the unbelievers is nothing new. But the sheer number of people gleefully enjoying the spectacle of their own blackest magical thinking made manifest by mass media is new. Or at least the media aspect is new. It reinforces the major appeal of these beliefs, the appeal being (to restate the obvious) that they get to pass judgment on everyone who disagrees with them, and then watch God kick the living snot out of them. It doesn’t get any better than that.

All my life I have seen these people and there are no more or less of them proportionately than before. It is simply that, A) they have built their own massive media, and B) educated middle class folks are noticing them now because they vote and a major political party is willing to violate the church-state boundary to get their votes. They have always been out here and always in about the same percentages. Think about that. It took me a while to accept it too. But George W. Bush learned the significance of this while campaigning for his daddy back when he was supposed to be at his National Guard meetings. Part of his job was to bring in the fundie Christian vote for Poppy. Come George’s turn to play poker for the presidency in that quadrennial rich man’s game we call elections, Sparky knew what cards to play. The effete John Kerry had not a clue. Still doesn’t. Neither did you. Right? Don’t feel bad. I even knew the great unwashed tribes of the faithful were out here, wrote spooky and panicked articles about it before the elections and still underestimated the capability of the death obsessed Christian right.

Lookie here. If you think I’m overcounting, think one more time about those Left Behind books that have sold over 65 million copies at this writing. Sold to people who do not even like or buy books. Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag never wrote anything that sold 65 million. That lead-footed prose and numbing predictability that Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye grind out in the Left Behind series might not even be called writing. But whatever it is, at least 65 million folks that our nation failed to educate find deep meaning and solace in it. LaHaye has also sold 120 million non-fiction books, which makes him the most successful Christian writer since the Bible.

Sales figures aside, it is entirely possible that the Left Behind series is as important in our time and cultural context as was, say, Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in its time, wherein Lincoln called it "the little book that started the big war." The truth is that LaHaye is among the most influential religious writers America ever produced and is the most powerful fundamentalist in America today. He is the founder and first president of the eerily secretive Council for National Policy, which brings together leading evangelicals and other conservatives with right-wing billionaires willing to pay for a conservative religious revolution. He is far more influential than Billy Graham or Pat Robertson and was the man who inspired Jerry Falwell to launch the Moral Majority. He gave millions of dollars to Falwell's Liberty University. He’s the man without whom Ronald Reagan would never have become governor of California and the man who grilled George W. Bush, then wiped the cocaine off George’s nose and gave him the official Christian fundie stamp of approval. He created the American Coalition for Traditional Values that has mobilized evangelical voters, putting neo-conservative wackjobs into political offices across the nation. In short, he is the Godfather of Soul, fundie style. When the man lays it down, his peeps doo dey duty.

Scratch LaHaye and you’ll find an honest-to-god surviving John Bircher. In the 1960s when LaHaye was a young up-and-coming Baptist preacher fresh out of Bob Jones University, he lectured on behalf of Republican Robert Welch’s John Birch Society. We are talking about a man who believed Dwight Eisenhower was an agent of the Communist Party taking orders from his brother, Milt Eisenhower. Along the way LaHaye extended his paranoid list of villains to include secular humanists who "are Satan’s agents hiding behind the Constitution." And the only way to destroy them is to destroy their cover.

I have asked preachers about the Left Behind books. They all claim to have reservations about them. Fundie preachers are snarky about any beliefs that do not precisely mirror their own, and no two ever agree completely. They publicly find fault with the apocalyptic Left Behind books even as they privately enjoy the books’ popularity. Most say the series overestimates the number of people going to heaven. Which figures, given that their stock and trade is the divine exclusivity of a club called "The Saved." No sense in ruining the brand by franchising it too cheaply.

Same goes for television as for the Christian pop-lit. Fundamentalists delighted in the NBC series Revelations. Admittedly it was a bullshit job from network people who had not the slightest understanding of the subject, but could smell more money the closer they got to it. They were right. Xian fundies sucked it up. Coolly as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, the fundies I know denied they enjoyed Revelations at all because the producers "got some things wrong," (as if it were possible to be wrong regarding dire predictions made centuries ago by superstitious mystic fanatics about something that never came to pass.) They say the main thing wrong was having Christ return as a little child. Most hardcore fundies preferred their vision of a Rambo Jesus arriving to beat the fuck out of everybody who ever disagreed with Him or them -- sinners’ eyeballs turning to putrid jelly, blood flowing everywhere, etc. (In Revelations Jesus arrives on horseback wearing a blood soaked robe.)

These media products are more than harmless American Christian kitsch culture or just more American religious swill. Swill it may be, but it is also dangerous propaganda and the writers know damned well that propaganda value. Just as the propaganda value of associating Jewish people with rats in Nazi Germany helped the German populace accept persecution of the Jews, the Left Behind books foster a morality that excuses horrors done to "non-believers." Forget about sanity and reason. Christian fundamentalist media promotes a hermetic worldview cut off from reason. From the standpoint of those who consume such media messages, it is not so much propaganda as it is an abundant offering so complete as to be a parallel bizzaro world of its own. It gives answers to questions not even asked.

It is a world in which the Secretary General of the United Nations is the anti-Christ (Left Behind) and the "Clinton Crime Family" deals in cocaine and is linked to the Gambino family (Joshua Project, and other sources.) It is one in which abortion doctors are microwaving and eating fetuses according to testimony given by anti-abortionists before a Kansas House subcommittee (WorldNetDaily, of course) and where crowds of good folks get teary-eyed as Rev. Pat Evans, of the NASCAR "Racing for Jesus Ministries’ rumbles onto the track. Evangelical NASCAR? Yup. What ABC called America’s "unapologetically evangelical sport." I can see you dear reader, running and holding your head and screaming at the thought. Yet it’s true. At Bristol and Talladega the earth is shaking for Jaaaayzus! Now that we have Evangelical NASCAR, what, I ask you, can ever go wrong?

"To be saved is to fall into the ludicrous and satanic flippancy of false piety, kitsch."
-- Trappist monk Thomas Merton

Forty years later Merton is still right. Like most American liberals, not to mention all of Europe and the rest of the world, I learned through education to write the U.S. born-again literature off as kitsch religion, merely bad theology in an unholy marriage to bad writing. Another product of the American Jesus industry. If we liberals can name it, assign it to some appropriately vulgar and sentimental corner of our degraded culture, and then remain tolerant of it, then we feel have dealt with the damned thing. After all, it is the comparative worldview of the teeming red state masses. But there is certain arrogance in such pop cultural erudition and thin worldliness, isn’t there? In itself, our attitude is too flip.

It took coming home to a born again red state to realize how cultural documents such as Left Behind or the movies Revelations and Passion of the Christ do great harm, and at a critical time when we are facing economic upheaval, fighting illegal wars and suffering deep religious antipathies across the planet. "Aw," my liberal New York and West Coast friends tell me, "That is overstating the case. The Democrats will eventually be back in power." We cannot afford to wait a few more years and see. No matter if the Dems actually can be elected back into powerlessness, they will have needed at least some of these people’s votes to get there. Next election we will find out if it is possible to be elected without the fundamentalist Christians. So far the Democratic political elite, who only take their thumb out of their ass to change thumbs, has not been able to stop the religious right’s relentless push. And I think it is because, at least from where I sit right now, the democratic establishment has not offered, much less delivered, and is incapable of delivering what my people really need -- decent educations so they will not be prey to three thousand year old superstitions. The left has yet to demand for all Americans a genuine absolutely free education, an opportunity to enjoy a life of the mind, or to even know such a thing exists. Hell, you got yours and I got mine, right? So screw’em. We progressives have failed. We were always and still are our brother's keeper and now the throw-away Americans, the ugly little dickhead at the car wash and the truck driver and the guy who delivers the bottled water to our offices are coming to get our assess, even though they aren’t quite sure why. My Random House editor told me not to get on a soapbox about this, but I cannot help it. (Sorry, Rachel)

I am not trying to be smart-assed, but to indicate the fear of what is unfolding around me as a person living in the belly of the beast. The reality gap between fundamentalist and urban liberals is unfathomable. Liberal observers watching from a safe distance in New York or San Francisco conclude it is pure stupidity that caused millions of Americans to continue support of the Bush junta in the face of overwhelming evidence of lies, deceit and contempt for the constitution, even as the fat cats raided their retirements and picked their pockets at every turn. Others think it is just plain meanness that attracted them to Bush. And so do I sometimes, because stupidity (the Jesus stockcar entries should be proof enough) and meanness are surely part of the attraction to a certain type of conservative -- that poisonous toad Karl Rove being their chief deity of meanness for meanness sake.

There remains one nagging problem. Despite their masochistic voting patterns, fundamentalists are very ordinary and normal Americans. People who often as not go out of their way to help others and endorse most American values. So how do we reconcile the warmth and good nature of these hardworking citizens with the repressive politics, intolerance, nationalism and warmaking they support? Why do such ordinary people do such awful things? The Germans have been wrestling with that one for 60 years, and sixty more years from now they still will have not solved the riddle in any meaningful way for the rest of the world. Barring ecological and cultural collapse, historians will say America suffered under the same sort of extraordinary delusion, a national hallucination of God and empire and exceptionalism. The thing about a hallucination -- and take it from a person who has enjoyed many fine ones on various chemicals and herbs -- is that it is a convincing reality in its time. Try talking to a fundamentalist about politics and God for an hour. You will see the spell that holds sway. Let us be thankful for pro sports or we would have nothing whatsoever to talk about on those rare occasions when a fundamentalist and a liberal ever bother to speak to one another.

Allow me to get down to the nub of this and say what urban liberals cannot allow themselves to say out loud: "Christian majority or not, the readers of such apocalyptic books as the Left Behind series are some pretty damned dumb motherfuckers caught up in their own black, vindictive fantasy." There. I said it for you. Let us proceed.

Beyond that, there is a more mundane aspect of the success of the Left Behind books. It is fair to say that Left Behind readers are happy to discover a pop-lit phenomenon that they can participate in at all -- popular literature that doesn’t conflict with their insulated and armor plated world view. At last they have something else to read besides Guideposts and Readers Digest, both of which pass as highbrow lit in most fundamentalist households. Aw come on. You know it is the truth the same as I do. If you go into the homes of most fundamentalists, you will not find many books at all, much less books that contain real ideas. Now they have the Left Behind series, the huge sales of which, as they see it, validate their beliefs. I know I am painting with a mighty wide brush, but so what? It’s by and large true. Considering that by no means do all fundamentalists believe in The Rapture, and that the whole Rapture thing is a cult within a larger cult, the popularity of the Left Behind series says something about the sheer scale of apocalyptic Christianity in the American heartland today. Do the readers believe the books? Again, I would say most do. Here are a couple of typical reader testimonials for the books:

"This series of books is the best I have ever read. I have looked long and hard to find a resource that put scripture into easy to read, and understand format. Many people I know get frustrated when they try to read scripture because they have trouble understanding the language. ... Now after reading these books I have a better understanding of where I stand at this moment."

"I started reading the Left Behind series in 2000 with the first book in paperback. ... I read it and was impressed with how well written it was and have read or own every book. In impact, it has gotten me closer to God than where I was before. ... I grew up in church, but was always afraid of what was supposed to happen at the end times. I was afraid of the Book of Revelation, because the thought of all of the evil that had to be fought terrified me. While reading the Left Behind series, I followed along with my Bible, and I am so excited that I am understanding and learning more than I ever have. I am no longer afraid of the fight against evil, because I know that I am on the side of the greatest and most powerful force. Thank you for getting me started on this path of learning."

These people may not be your neighbors or friends, but they are ordinary and typical Americans. If you the reader are a college educated middle class person, then folks like those above outnumber you roughly three to one in this country. If that is not reason enough to drink, then I don’t know what is. No matter what happens, in the next election, we are going to be dealing for a long time to come with millions of voters who think Left Behind is great literature, spiritual guidance and a political primer all in one. Do we really think that cartload of bloated hacks called the Democratic Party knows what to do about this? Do you really think Howard Dean has a clue about how to deal with this entire class of Americans. Hardly. And besides, even if the Dems can get elected again and restored to the impotency they have come to represent, they will have needed these people’s votes to get there. Or they simply will not get there. So let’s not expect the Democratic political elite to save us from watching the fundie takeover attempts escalate in the future (In which case, assuming my book makes some real dough, I will be watching from abroad, thank you.) Essentially it comes down to the fact that a very large portion of Americans are crazier than shithouse rats and are being led by a gang of pathological misfits, most of whom are preachers and politicians. We are not talking about simple religious faith here. There is a world of difference between having religious faith and being a born-again zealot who believes in his heart that he is thumping Darwinian demons out of classrooms and that Ted Kennedy is the anti-Christ. Trading down to the Democratic party of the pussies really will not save us. It will just buy a little time. But we have whipped the hell out of this dead horse before, haven’t we? Forgive me.

Meanwhile, we are left to contemplate communication with these folks, people whose leaders deliver unfathomable pronouncements such as the following one regarding family finances and the national economy from a Christian radio broadcast.

The mystery of the harlot of Jerusalem is solved, people! Praise the Lord! Deuteronomy 15:6 says plain as the nose on your face that "For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. Therefore, the harlot is NOT the gentile nations! "The harlot controls and rules over the gentile nations, sitting on them." Rev 17:1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: Rev 17:15. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. NOW IS THAT NOT PROOF ENOUGH?

Get that?

Me neither.

But what the hell. It makes sense to millions of voting Americans. So do I hear a great big Amen out there?

AMEN!

I get reminders of fundamentalism’s dark magical thinking every day. And it is always the little unexpected ones that slap me hardest with the reality that these people are in the grip of their mass delusion 24 hours a day. A couple of weeks ago I loaned my brother my old truck until he could get his engine rebuilt. A week later he retuned it with much sincere thanks and a smile. On the vent window of my truck is a 4-inch decal, a silhouette of two square dancers (my father-in-law, who gave me the truck, was a square dancer.) When I climbed into it the next day I noticed that the square dancers were covered over both inside and outside the glass with two layers of duct tape. After all, we cannot be riding around in trucks with demonic emblems blasting out invisible rays of Satan’s "Power of the air," can we?

vampirefreak

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:42:34 GMT

A friend of mine told me I had too much evil energy in me and should share it with other freaks like me. Thus, I've joined vampirefreaks, a thing for finding friends I guess, like livejournal. Eh.

I am a Vampire!

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 06:37:42 GMT

I think blood is pretty. I like to bite :D I can't sleep at night, hate the sun, have pale skin and sharp canines. And I hisssss.

Myep.

So, dad's an idiot. He's soooo cheap when it comes to me that he refuses to buy me a much needed bra, and Kathy has to buy it for me! Threre I was, embarassed enough to begin with that I had to show my dad the bra I was going to wear, out in the middle of the store, then he starts yelling, throwing the word around. He then continues to guilt trip me, telling me that our family is having a rough time and that we'll all starve because 'I just had to have a bra'. The cheapest bra in the store, btw. And yet, he has enough money to buy himself, in the same trip, nine shirts, a pair of jeans, and new shiney speakers for his laptop.

ASS.

tarot cards

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 05:39:50 GMT

Here they are, Craig, so far (I hope you like them....)

I made some without really thinking, but now that my Photoshop is bust for some reason I'm postponed and can't add on to them or mod them for a while....

ZOMBIES!!!

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:35:00 GMT

Your Livejournal zombie attack.

LiveJournal Username

The name of your zombie infested home town.

Your zombie killing weapon of choice.

How much do zombies scare you?

Oh noes!!11 A zombie! What do you do?

Blasting zombies left and right with a freaking twelve guage. What do you think?

nevelinde

Curled into a fetal position crying their eyes out.

hakuzo

Is pwning some zombies with Don't Stop Me Now playing in the background.

oldsoulsax627

Is sitting at home watching CNN and eating ice cream.

hakuzo

Get ripped to pieces by the zombies. Bummer.

oldsoulsax627

Is the zombie king who you must destroy to end the zombie menace.

mavrik_aequitas

Number of zombies you decapitate.

553

Chances you survive the zombie swarm.

81%

This Fun Quiz created by Rob at BlogQuiz.Net

Up to the minute Sport News at NewsDump

Your LiveJournal Pirate Crew
LiveJournal Username
Fifteen men on a dead man's chest!
Cutlass or pistol?
What is the name of your pirate ship?
Where is your secret pirate base?
What kind of loot do you prefer?
What do you and your crew prefer to be called?
Parrot or monkey?
Argh!

Your capable first mate	nevelinde
Your bumbling cabin boy with a heart of gold	nevelinde
The aloof, yet honorable, pirate with a mysterious past	faerie_grrl1608
Is always the first one into the fray	wight1984
Is the naval officer who ruthlessly pursues your ship	faerie_grrl1608
Is the comical pirate who is always drunk on grog	hakuzo
Is currently in Davy Jones's locker	get_medieval
The amount of money you make as a pirate	$52,215


This Fun Quiz created by Lynn at BlogQuiz.Net

Libra Horoscope at DailyHoroscopes.Biz