The Wilhelm Scream

Helpful Health Hint of the Day

Warning! Crucifixion can be hazardous to your health! Who knew? Apparently, Filipinos certainly didn't as they prepared for the Easter celebration this weekend.

Health officials in the Philippines have issued a warning to people taking part in Easter crucifixion rituals.
The health department has strongly advised penitents to check the condition of the whips they plan to use to lash their backs, the Manila Times newspaper reports.In the hot and dusty atmosphere, officials warn, using unhygienic whips to make deep cuts in the body could lead to tetanus and other infections.

Truly, in my experience, the only Easter tragedy worse than accidentally using a Tetanus laden whip for self-flagellation has to be your mom forgetting the Cadbury creme eggs for your Easter basket.

That's right, Mom! It's been 21 years, and you're still not forgiven!

Have Religion Is Not A Carte Blanche for Douchebaggery

    It was hard not to be enraged by this NPR story about ultra-orthodox Jews attacking neighbors in the Jerusalem suburbs for not dressed moderately enough and keeping Kosher.
    The Harediim, as they're known in Jerusalem, follow a very strict code, including conservative rules governing the dress of both women and men. Until recently, most of them had lived in their insular Jerusalem neighborhood known as Mea Shariim, where they were known to be testy towards tourists but mostly kept to themselves. Yet recently, because of escalating costs of living, they've had to move to the more integrated suburbs, where there are Jews of many stripes, and the dudes with the curly sideburns have been bugging out, even resorting to throwing rocks at women whom they deem as dressing too provocatively.
    Many of the Harediim in the story were quick to blame inappropriately dressed women for distracting them from their concentrated reverence of God, the Torah, etc.
    Apparently, they're too busy basking in their moral superiority to ever question what God might think of them pelting innocent women with rocks, but, hey, it's not like your daily greeting in Hebrew translates literally to peace or anything. Oh wait. . .
    This is a strange phenomenon I see not only with ultra-orthodox Jews but several people of various faiths who are extremely religious. It seems they become so entranced with their own spiritual piety they forget not to treat their peers and neighbors like total shit.
    Don't get my wrong, I think there's a lot of great stuff to be found in organized religion. Jesus, admittedly, was one cool cat who hung out with and befriended lepers, prostitutes and other untouchables. He was the biblical equivalent of a high school football captain spending his lunch periods and Friday nights chilling with all the geeks in the physics club. (Though I don't think even Jesus would hang with those Model U.N. dorks.)
    I just don't get why so many people have to turn religion around to get satisfaction from it. Instead of it being about caring for one another and doing right, it becomes about subjugation. It becomes about bending others to your will. And that, I think, is wrong and a crime against liberty and personal freedom. It's certainly not what Jesus would do.    
    It's also why I, regrettably, think the world would be better off without organized religion. It's unfortunate the Harediim do such an excellent job of convincing me I'm right.

 

  That said, TheWilhelmScream believes in nothing if not balance, and it would be hard to disparage the Harediim without mentioning the lovely film, Ushpizin, which lays bare the beauty and fellowship behind their faith for all to see.
    The film follows Moshe and Mali Bellange, a childless and penurious couple of Hasidic Jews, living in the Breslove community in Jerusalem. At the center of the movie is Moshe and Mali's struggle to properly celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Though they receive an unexpected gift that helps them buy a particularly beautiful citron, which is required for the observance of the holiday, their lives are thrown into turmoil with the arrival of two escaped cons. One of the cons knows Moshe from his previous life, and he feels obligated to extend his hospitality to the two men who don't understand (or really respect) their ways.
    What ensues is a lovely and humorous meditation on how staying faithful to your ideals often requires hardship and sacrifice. It shouldn't be missed. In fact, I think the rabbis should make it required viewing for those rock-hurling Harediim.

Yippie-ty Do Daa! What a Wonderful Riot Today!

   

Chicago 10, a re-telling of the 1968 Democratic Convention riots and the subsequent trial, is - quite simply - the best documentary I've seen this year.

    A brimming and provocative amalgam of archival footage, audio recordings, actors reading court transcripts and animation, it follows in the footsteps of The Kid Stays in the Picture and Jessica Yu's recent documentaries (In the Realms of the Unreal and Protagonist) in pushing the boundaries of the medium.         
    Here's a documentary with a palette as rich as any feature film and an acidic sense of story telling that keeps us on edge; the director doesn't allow the action to trundle along, unfolding sequentially. He thrusts us straight into the middle of the trial, which serves as a conduit to revisit the riots, peppering along the way animated stand-up performances and radio call-ins by the various members of the Chicago 10.      The animated incarnations of of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and their cohorts tower over us as though we're a young child wandering through the courtroom.
    Their faces looked rotoscoped, but their limbs move with an artificial heaviness, as if they're models out of an airplane safety video. In a way this makes sense, as what unfolds during the trial (and it's taken straight from the transcripts) seems totally detached from reality; our justice system never looked more shameful and myopic.
    Suffice to say, the curmudgeonly judge, whose jowls hang from his face like a bulldog's, is so one-sided in his vituperation of the Chicago 8, that Abbie and his other Yippies anticipate and musically recite with the judge's every "objection overruled."
    Abbie and the other Yippies, as they call themselves, have resigned themselves to their likely conviction for inciting a riot, and their main goal during the trial is to destroy the court's authority however they can.
    Yet the hilarity of their hijinks and their ability to point out the court's absurdity takes a darker turn, when Bobby Seale, a Black Panther unfairly charged in the case, demands to exercise his right to defend himself. What ensues is a scene we've become all too familiar - a government overstepping its bounds, literally shackling its citizens, in the name of security and justice.
    As outrageous as the trial was, it's mostly a conduit for the film to explore the riots themselves, for which there is an amazingly comprehensive library of archival footage. And it's fantastic footage at that - we see bloodied faces, we're surrounded by tear gas, we even see the face of police officers with a glazed look in their eyes, perhaps shocked themselves at what they have done.
    Yet perhaps what's most brilliant about the film is that it doesn't succumb to the cliche of wrapping this package in 60s nostalgia - too often movies like this are little more than nostalgic junk food for baby boomers to reminisce about the days before they stopped caring about anything but their retirement funds.
    Instead, the soundtrack is highlighted by Rage Against the Machine and Eminem; it's clear this is a film about today as much as it is about the convention.
    Today, just as it was then, our country is engaged in an unpopular war, one that was started under seriously dubious justifications - yet why isn't there the same level of anger and outrage as there was in Chicago in 68?
    Why aren't we organizing our own marches through the cities? Why aren't we fucking mad as hell?
    I think it's in part due to the fact the country was united behind the Iraqi War when it began. And, frankly, if our friends were being drafted and killed instead of high school drop-outs from Kansas, we'd probably be a lot more outraged.
    After seeing Chicago 10, it made me want to get unruly. It made we want to show the government and the powers that I'm not afraid. Of course, I actually haven't done anything since then.
    At the end of the day, I think that's it. We're too comfortable. We're too afraid of risking that comfort to really take a stand. We bitch and complain, but when push comes to shove most of us wouldn't have been willing to use our vacation days to travel to Chicago and protest back in '68.
    You can say many things about the Yippies in Chicago 10 - that they were provocateurs, that they indulged in self-aggrandizement, that their beliefs amounted to little more than anarchy.
    But at least they weren't afraid.

I'd Shoot A Rocket into Israel For You

    I am a bad blogger as it has been more than a week since my last post. Are there punishments doled out for this sort of negligence? Perhaps a public flogging by professed woman-hater Charlotte Allen. She and Leonard Sax really should meet for lunch and challenge each other to see who can make the most myopic generalizations about an entire gender in under 30 minutes.
    If that happens, I think I'll stay at home and pound my head against the wall for a couple hours - I'll save myself a few bucks on lunch while my brain would experience the same sort of stimulation of actually listening to their conversation.
    The actual culprit, however, in my blogging recalcitrance has been Comcast, which installed our new Internet connection a couple weeks ago but provided a used modem that happened to be broken. What the hell, man?! Why can't they spring for a new modem? Are they really that expensive? And wouldn't they at least test a modem to make sure it works before installing it?
    I would also be willing to bet my roommate's beer belly that Comcast probably loses more money in lost man hours replacing broken modems they just installed than they would if they sprang for new ones. Comcast better watch out or I'll start a new I Hate Comcast group on Facebook, and then they'll be REALLY screwed!

    Anyway, I've mentioned previously on the blog that I spent a couple weeks this winter in the Middle East, including a few days bumming around Israel. Since then, I've been following the hullabaloo that's been brewing in Gaza, and it looks like Israel is eventually going to have to invade to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israeli cities like Ashkelon.
    Clearly, the Israelis are in a tough position. They certainly can't stand for Palestinians to be terrorizing their people by randomly firing missiles across the border, yet any military action is inevitably going to be criticized ad nauseum by their critics as more imperialist bullying.
    Yet the way Israeli PM Ehmet Olmert has gone about this has really irked me, especially the way he's inflicted suffering on thousands of Gaza civilians in trying to stop the attacks. By doing this, they've only made the support for Hamas in Gaza stronger. Olmert needs to stop acting as though all Palestinians are conspiring against the country, even if many openly admit they hate Israel, and start treating them with dignity. How would things have been different if Olmert pulled out all the stops to ensure civilians were as unaffected as possible by their campaign to stop the rocket launches?
    Pessimists might argue nothing would be different, but isn't it at least worth trying instead of willy-nilly shutting off power supplies and nearly starving people?

    And, well, there's something else that I think Olmert needs to consider.

    TheWilhelmScream, in general, doesn't like war, thinks guns are very uncool (unless they're ion cannons on the Millennium Falcon) and abhors violence, but there was one thing walking around Israel that I could not deny:

    ISRAELI SOLDIER GIRLS DRIVE ME CRAZY!
    They're all so fit and tan, and there's just something about how the loose-hanging AK-47s move with the sway of their hips when they walk. Seriously, AK-47s are like high heels - they make every woman wearing them seem just a little sexier.

    It's quite obvious to me that if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, I'd be tempted to shoot rockets into Ashkelon just so I could get to check out all the hot Israeli soldier vixens who'd be arresting and frisking me during the consequential invasion!
    Note to Olmert: When it's time to invade, make sure you only send ugly soldier dudes.

PS: I saw Chicago 10 (awesome!) and No Country For Old Men (Meeeeh) over the weekend. I'll be blogging about those later in the week.