Diary of the Mad Pigeon

Ow. Right below the waterline.

I have no idea why, but this preview seems to hit every relationship-related insecurity and fear I have. Totally blindsided by this one, and it was bad. Wait, it actually followed the overly ditzy, not-that-good-looking, vacuous visage of Sarah Jessica Parker in the giant queue-o'-previews the other day. A perfect end to that saga would be her character's realization that no, she is not a beautiful and unique snowflake, and yes, she will probably die alone.

But I digress. Hollywood is evil, and if recent romantic comedies are any indicator--not to mention Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay--the last thing anyone is allowed to denigrate on screen is women in general. Even if they (women) have it coming. For one thing, there needs to be a backlash against the prevailing portrayal of men as dumb and ponderous.

Where's the outrage? Why isn't anyone running up the bullshit flag on this? 

This is probably my last zombie post

Hi, it's MOGS, and I think it's about time we thought about "closing out" another topic here at the Pigeon.

Y'all might have noticed that we tend to talk about zombies a lot on this blog, going all the way back to the beginning of it, and well, do a search, I don't think there's been a single month on the blog yet where we haven't at least mentoned zombies, if not linked to gory (or funny, or both) YouTube vid or other media (my Misfits obsession, whether it's Old 'Fits or New 'Fits comes to mind, again).  Yup, we loves us some zombies, heck, I think Pidge, Antitool (to a lesser extent) and I all just enjoy the horror genre in general, for various reasons.

Speaking of various reasons, something I've always wanted to talk about a little bit is the "social commentary" aspect of zombie films, especially George Romero's "Dead" series, for better or worse, considered the granddaddy of them all (though I have a real soft spot - so to speak - for Army of Darkness)

Before we dig in and bite (so to speak) on this topic, I have a big confession to make.  I am NOT a gore hound.  I was like 8 years old the first time I tried to watch "Alien" with my dad, and I don't think I slept for an entire week after the experience.  Ironically, the one thing I really don't watch Zombie flicks for in general are new and creative ways to tear human bodies to pieces, or to see someone go to town on gray matter...unless the poor schlubs involved really had it coming, which happens some times.  I generally want the heroes to survive, hopefully with all or at least a plurality of limbs and appendages intact.  Yeah, I'm kinda a wuss sometimes, so the why the hell would I subject myself to this stuff?  I like a good scare, but I don't enjoy crap like Saw, or Touristas, or Hostel, films which are aptly described as "torture porn" or "snuff film voyeurism" I think.  Even worse, I tend to be a fan of the more tongue-in-rotted-cheek, funnier movies out there, Shaun of the Dead being a particular favorite (a funny British movie about American movies, but it's British, and....never mind).  There's even zombie music, which also is definitely NOT for the faint of heart (or stomach), or the hard of hearing. 

But anyway, getting back to the why I can't help but watch even when someone is having vital portions of their anatomy forcibly removed...it's that 1) I always find myself asking - just how the hell did these idiots manage to get themselves into this situation?  and 2) if these are "classic" or "Romero" zombies we're talking about - all slow, not terribly strong or superpowered or anything, geez man, try running for starters!  for God's sake, DO SOMETHING.

That's really it.  It's the survival aspect I guess.  It's why Antitool, Pigeon, and a large number of friends and families enjoy the hell out of World War Z, and it's predecessor The Zombie Survival Guide, both by Max Brooks.  It's watching groups of human fall completely apart (before they get um, taken completely apart), because it's always a grade-A screwup or three that leads to the group's undoing.   I think it's the historian in me.  We spend our lives reading in complete astonishment how great civilizations fall to pieces, conquests, collapses, etc - as a group I think we're all somewhat pessimistic and cynical, convinced of the inevitable downfall and passing of nearly, well everything, and utterly thrilled when a people, a state, an institution seem to escape or at least stave off the march of time and decay for a few decades, sometimes centuries, or even still, manage the rare, true triumph and ascend to new heights.   

There's that, and the military/survival aspect of it.  The survival aspect, after the schooling and training some of us go through, even the low-fi version, always gets you thinking about how you'd do in a truly messed-up, hopeless situation.  Yes, some people even have "zombie plans" because it really is the ultimate survival scenario (Survivor Season XXIII, "Escape from Zombie City").  The collapse of civilizations, and the collapse of the people in them is just too good to watch, but I don't enjoy it for wanton cruelty for the sake of cruelty itself (re: Saw, etc), no matter how "clever" it is (and really let's be honest, Saw is a one-trick pony)...

All that being said, a lot of critics and academics over the years have spent many reams of paper trying to explain to us that George Romero is a brilliant social critic, not just a slinger of blood and spiller of entrails.  Personally, I can buy it once, with the black hero of the original Night of the Living Dead, I can maybe, maybe that is, buy it twice, with the late-'70s critique of materialism and I can understand the dissatisfaction of seeing shopping malls pop up like weeds all over the landscape, but you know what?  The guy reads his own dang press too much.  His critique is NOT all that sophisticated, or fair, or accurate, and I think it shows a clear sign that American academia (mostly) really ran out of steam, really jumped the shark in terms of the humanities around 1968 when it spends its time trying to justify popular culture as enlightening highbrow.  Sorry people, if it ain't there, then it just ain't there.  Furthermore, if it takes a sophisticate more than two paragraphs (and I think I'm being overly generous) of text or lecture to try to convince audiences of the presence of some such metaphor or meaning or subtext, then I call bullshit, especially if said sophisticate throws up his and hands and mutters something to the effect of "you uncultured phillistines just don't get it."

I'm going to try to keep this spoiler free...but don't hold me to it.

1) The original:  here's what made it brave, and socially relevent - a) black hero b) black hero gets killed at the end by white dude - nevermind that the black hero was the only thing stirring in an area being swept of zombies by the folks who figured out just how to the hell to fight these things and NOT die.  In short, all said and done, hero was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Other than the fact the film came out in 1968 really, what's the big social point being made?  That a black man can be heroic and still get killed for it anyway?  That's actually called "life sucks, here's a helmet," and that cosmic truth could care less about race, gender, or creed.  That the guy spent most of the film trying to tell the dumb white folk locked in the farm house with him how not to die, and gets killed for it anyway is tragic, but it's tragic because it's tragic first, and the racial element comes far second.  Did Romero presume importance because of the MLK assassination?  Like I said, I'll give the benefit of the doubt though, and actually buy it (social commentary) for the first film.

2) Dawn of the Dead (1979) - supposedly more "satirical" than the others - the film's entire reputation stems around a few things, namely a) it's pretty good b) the sight of the blue-skinned denizens of Pittsburgh who each made around $50.00 or so by appearing in the movie stumbling around the Monroeville Mall where today they offer Dawn of the Dead tours:)...the way most people just kind of stumble around malls to begin with...you know, except for the whole cannibalism thing...BUT here in lies the rub:  okay, so there's supposedly some points being made about

1) the underclass

2) illegal immingrants

3) rampant consumerism destroying our society but again, according to who?

- Is Romero's whole point that consumerism is bad because it represents economic prosperity, and bad because wealth is distributed unfairly and therefore American society deserves to be destroyed?  Is your whole point "malls suck?"  Is your point that contrary to popular belief and TV shows starring hottie Mila Kunis, "the '70s actually sucked ?" "America sucks, and to show you I am violently going to kill all these people."  Oooookay.

-  Like most of Romero's artistic contemporaries, he seems to assume prima facia moral superiority...based on what though?  Just a generic '60s-based anti-establishment stance, and he thinks that assumption is so universal that he never has to prove it?  Goerge, you had a clever idea, and you let it go to your head.

3) Day of the Dead (1985) - okay, now he's really read too many of his own gushing critics.  First of all, he presents complete cartoon characters in the form of his military personnel and scientists characters(because that's the secret aim of all of us, to raise UNBEATABLE ARMIES OF THE UNDEAD MWHAHAHA), they're the Saturday morning kids version of the gov't, of military personnel and scientists that seems to be the Woodstock generation's only conception of these people.  That and as a result, EVERY ZOMBIE STORY SINCE USES THIS SAME DAMN PLOT DEVICE, and honestly, it's rotting.

4) Land of the Dead (2004) - dude this was kinda neat, but also kinda bloody awful.  Dennis Hopper?  Dennis Hopper doesn't act, he's still thinks he's the drugged out hippie from Apocalypse Now.  Land was a complete parody, a bad one, like a cliff-notes version of Romero's talking points, and you know it.  Actually, this one is pretty much blatant, overbearing Marxist cheerleading.  Working-class stiffs (literally) "eating the rich" as Aerosmith used to sing about?  Wow man, way to go for subtlety.  George, you were way better at this before you realized that you were supposedly creating social critique.  The second you started trying, your movies started to suck (so, has anyone out there besides misguided Michale Graves fans actually ever seen "Bruiser?"  No?  Didn't think so...).  This was insultingly didactic and self-righteous.  You could argue that it's satire, but I saw more meanspirited contempt in this than "satire", and to be fair, satire is hard to pull off, and the shelf life lasts about as long as Paris Hilton would trying to escape a crowd of zombies while carrying her little yip-yip dropkick doggie.

5) Diary of the Dead - haven't seen it, but the advance reviews have not been too kind.  I think the general consensus is that Romero has post-modern post-structuralist counter-narrative go to his head :) and has really mistaken gruesomely clever deaths and special makeup jobs (re: Tom Savini et al) for cutting edge critique.  If you can find it, there's a National Review Online writeup that basically tore the limbs off this. 

Here's a hint: just because I can film a disgustingly realistic scene of cannibal disembowlment does not inherently qualify me to pontificate on American social policy, mores, and values.

Great. Just great.

Just as the Air Force is asking for a record-busting budget increase, we lose one of these.

Looks like we can expect another RIF.

Oh, and Sean Young is hot.

Movies!

Indy versus the....Soviets this time? Neat!

Obligatory zombie movie:  How MOGS would do it...

Well, I've already seen Cloverfield (I like it!), am going to see National Treasure, and now it looks like I need to keep these in mind and some open space on my, um, oh-so-packed and fully firmed calendar...

Hollywood writers start strike after talks collapse

Reuters: Some 12,000 screenwriters went on strike against the U.S. film and television industry on Monday after the collapse of last-ditch contract negotiations aimed at preserving nearly 20 years of Hollywood labor peace.
 
Ten hours of bargaining presided over by a federal mediator failed to close a deal before a strike deadline set last Friday by the Writers Guild of America, which has sought a greater share of DVD and Internet revenues for its members.

The initial impact of a strike for most of the public will be felt on television.

Popular late-night talk shows such as NBC's "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman," which are produced on a day-to-day basis and depend on a steady supply of topical jokes and sketches, were expected to go into immediate reruns.  CONTINUED

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So... am I supposed to feel sorry for a bunch of workers whose salary's based on how much passive, intellectually dead material they can stuff in my brain?

The way this is plastered all over the news you'd think it was the Reagan-era Air Traffic Control strike all over again. 

The big difference, of course, is the controllers actually provided a valuable service to society.  Not to mention they all got fired, which is how I hope this all pans out for the screenwriters.

For those of us who don't really watch television, this isn't a life-altering crisis.  Indeed, when "Everyone Loves Raymond" went off the air I thought it had only been on a couple of years! I've never seen a single episode of Sex in the City, 6 Feet Under, The Sopranos, CSI-*PLACE CITY NAME HERE*, Heroes, Dancing with the Stars, Lost... in fact, my TV viewing's pretty much limited to the History, Travel and Discovery channels, Animal Planet, and the Weather Channel while I dress for work.  At least I learn something from their programming.  Even then, it's in sparing amounts, and usually while at the gym.

And as one drama, after sitcom, after reality show has passed me by, I've read thousands of books, magazines, and newspapers... and written for this blog.  There's simply not enough time in life to waste through passive entertainment (not saying a given book or mag is always high-brow, but at least it's active).

In short, screw the screenwriters--go read a book instead!

So spaketh the pigeon.

Sympathetic Fictional Villains?

Okay, here's a thread I ganked over from The Volokh Conspiracy, I thought it was too good to pass up.  Some basic categories are laid out below to consider:

I. The supposed villain turns out not to be villainous at all.

II. I sympathize with the villain because I disagree with the story's ideological message.

III. The villain isn't really responsible for his actions.

IV. The villain turns out to be the lesser of two evils.

And now, a few rules to consider:

1).  Historical characters are eligible ONLY if they have appeared in a work of fiction or mythology (see Rule 2)

2)   For purposes of this exercise, mythology and religious source documents count (I AM *NOT* CALLING ANY RELIGIOUS TEXT A WORK OF 'FICTION'), because they constitute an too important source of stories and characters to be left out - yes this is arbitrary, maybe ham-handed and uncouth, but I couldn't see cutting out the Iliad, or the Bible for that matter...

3) All fictional works are fair game: movies, operas, concept albums, short stories, video games, novels, I think you get the idea...

I'll post my own in a day or so...

So, Lemme Get This Straight...

Al Freakin' Gore wins the Nobel Peace Price over people like this

Not Nobel Winners
October 13, 2007; Page A10

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

Or to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.

Or to Garry Kasparov and the several hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed, for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.

Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target civilians.

Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color" revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.

Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.

Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to their countrymen.

Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy campaigners in Egypt.

Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian control.

Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck; Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean refugees escape to safety in free nations.

These men and women put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize Committee might consider them for the 2008 award.

- (list brought to you by the Wall Street Journal and Carly)

And while we're at it, let's discuss someone who'd done greater things for the cause of peace in this world during his all-too-short life than Al "I was a photographer back in 'Nam man" Gore or his pals will ever do.

First Navy MoH since Vietnam to go to SEAL

By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Oct 13, 2007 6:51:59 EDT

SAN DIEGO — Two years after his death in a harrowing firefight on a mountaintop in Afghanistan, Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a SEAL from Patchogue, N.Y., will receive the nation’s highest combat honor, Navy officials said.

A Navy spokeswoman confirmed Oct. 11 the decision by President Bush approving the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor, the first for the Navy for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Murphy, 29, was leading a four-man reconnaissance and surveillance team during Operation Red Wing in Afghanistan’s rugged Hindu Kush mountains June 28, 2005, when the team was spotted by Taliban fighters. During the intense battle that followed, Murphy and two of his men — Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class (SEAL) Danny Dietz and Sonar Technician (Surface) 2nd Class (SEAL) Matthew Axelson — were killed. A fourth man, then-Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (SEAL) Marcus Luttrell, was seriously wounded and knocked unconscious, but managed to escape. Luttrell was rescued days later.

Murphy was killed while phoning in for reinforcements. The tragedy continued when enemy fighters shot down one of the transport helicopters carrying the rescue force, killing eight more SEALs and eight Special Forces operators. The 11 SEALs killed marked the largest single-day loss of life for the tight-knit community.

Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Murphy’s parents, Daniel and Maureen, and his brother, John, on Oct. 22 at a 2:30 p.m. ceremony in the White House....

Or, how about this?  From what I think is Mike Yon's single Greatest Work to Date?

Over the next couple of days in Landstuhl, dozens of wounded soldiers told their stories, and although soldiers can complain about most anything, no one had a single serious complaint about the treatment they’d received from the medical teams.

Everyone, it seemed, felt cared for, including the families who swarmed in from America and other places. The airplanes kept coming from Afghanistan and Iraq, seven days per week, and many families were there to greet wounded soldiers. While these journeys are most often a source of comfort for patient and family alike, they also can be cauldrons for stress. One mother cried hysterically despite her family’s efforts to quiet her. Another mother and daughter-in-law got into an emotional dispute about where to bury the dead soldier who was once both the mother’s son and the wife’s husband.

The soldier who had been ambushed by the IED in Iraq was expected to die very soon. I was a few feet away when a call came in from a close family member. The family member did not inquire about his condition or what happened. This family member only wanted to know when the soldier would die, and who would receive his death benefit. In less civilized times, people like that roamed the battlefield with tools to pry gold teeth from the jaws of fallen soldiers, but it was distressing to imagine that a family member would do the same.

For the wounded, the medical staff and liaisons kept the focus on the needs of the patients. For the family members, there were civilian groups like Soldiers’ Angels and Fisher House providing comfort and succor....

Hey NPP Committee, please go choke yourselves now.

Now this is amazing!

Who says you need Hollywood?

Kudos to the viewers who watch, and know what this story is all about without me droppin' any hints :)

Full Frontal Nerdity

Nerdity.  Geekery.  Nerdery.  Dorkitude.  Whatever you call it, chances are your workplaces, families, social circles, or hell, just plain old YOU are in some small or large way part of the geek nation. 

That being said, allow to illustrate a rant which I think sums up a couple bored conversations I happened in on during my latest TDY.  Yes, when you put together a bunch of air force people, everybody from space to intel to pilots and comm weenies, it stands to reason that sooner or later someone is going to bring up something along the lines of.....

10 things i hate about star trek

Actually, you can just about ignore 10-6 and skip right to 5, which I think is the MOST IMPORTANT and salient point, esp these days in the military...but hey, it's your time :)

10. Noisy doors.
You can't walk three feet in a starship without some door whooshing or screeching at you. My office building has automatic sliding doors. They're dead silent. If those doors went "wheet!" every time a person walked through them, about once a month some guy in accounting would snap and go on a shooting rampage. Sorry Scotty, the IEEE has revoked your membership until you learn to master WD-40

9. The Federation.
This organization creeps me out. A planet-wide government that runs everything, and that has abolished money. A veritable planetary DMV. Oh sure, it looks like a cool place when you're rocketing around in a Federation Starship, but I wonder how the guy driving a Federation dump truck feels about it?

And everyone has to wear those spandex uniforms. Here's an important fact: Most people, you don't want to see them in spandex. You'd pay good money to not have to see them. If money hadn't been abolished, that is. So you're screwed.

8. Reversing the Polarity.
For cripes sake Giordi, stop reversing the polarity of everything! It might work once in a while, but usually it just screws things up. I have it on good authority that the technicians at Starbase 12 HATE that. Every time the Enterprise comes in for its 10,000 hour checkup, they've gotta go through the whole damned ship fixing stuff. "What happened to the toilet in Stateroom 3?" "Well, the plumbing backed up, and Giordi thought he could fix it by reversing the polarity."

Between Scotty's poor lubrication habits and Geordi's damned polarity reversing trick, it's a wonder the Enterprise doesn't just spontaneously explode whenever they put the juice to it.

7. Seatbelts.
Yeah, I know this one is overdone, but you'd think that the first time an explosion caused the guy at the nav station to fly over the captain's head with a good 8 feet of clearance, someone would say, "You know, we might think of inventing some furutistic restraining device to prevent that from happening." So of course, they did make something like that for the second Enterprise (the first one blew up due to poor lubrication), but what was it? A hard plastic thing that's locked over your thighs. Oh, I'll bet THAT feels good in the corners. "Hey look! The leg-bars worked as advertised! There goes Kirk's torso!"

6. No fuses.
Every time there's a power surge on the Enterprise the various stations and consoles explode in a shower of sparks and throw their seatbelt-less operators over Picard's head. If we could get Giordi to stop reversing the polarity for a minute, we could get him to go shopping at the nearest Starship parts store and pick up a few fuses. And while he's shopping, he could stop at an intergalactic IKEA and pick up a few chairs for the bridge personnel. If you're going to put me in front of a fuseless exploding console all day, the least you could do is let me sit down.

5. Rule by committee.
Here's the difference between Star Trek and the best SF show on TV last year:

Star Trek:

Picard: "Arm photon torpedoes!"
Riker: "Captain! Are you sure that's wise?"
Troi: "Captain! I'm picking up conflicting feelings about this! And, it appears that you're a 'fraidy cat."
Wesley: "Captain, I'm just an annoying punk, but I thought I should say something."
Worf: "Captain, can I push the button? This is giving me a big Klingon warrior chubby."
Giordi: "Captain, I think we should reverse the polarity on them first."
Picard: "I'm so confused. I'm going to go to my stateroom and look
pensive."

Firefly:

Captain: "Let's shoot them."
Crewman: "Are you sure that's wise?"
Captain: "Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I'll BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who's in command."
Crewman: "Aye Aye, sir!"

(MOGS)  - this my friends, is the pinnacle of awesomeness, and the no 1 thing that I personally can't stand about Star Trek (next to the fact that with few exceptions, you're constantly waiting around hoping that the good guys are going to stop whining and start kicking ass at some point, something the Jedi never seem to have much of a problem with I notice...)

Note the difference illustrated between an actual working, effective chain of command, and a bunch of spandex-wearing losers who constantly get their ship destroyed (what are they on like Enterprise number 40 or something by now?) You can skip the rest of these if you want, I got my point across :)

4. A Star Trek quiz:
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and 'Ensign Gomez' beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?

3. Technobabble.
The other night, I couldn't get my car to start. I solved the problem by reversing the polarity of the car battery, and routing the power through my satellite dish. The resulting subspace plasma caused a rift in the space-time continuum, which created a quantum tunnelling effect that charged the protons in the engine core, thus starting my car. Child's play, really. As a happy side-effect, I also now get the Spice Channel for free.

2. The Holodeck.
I mean, it's cool and all. But do you really believe that people would use it to re-create Sherlock Holmes mysteries and old-west saloons? Come on, we all know what the holodeck would be used for. And we also know what the worst job on the Enterprise would be: Having to squeegie the holodeck clean.

1. The Prime Directive.
How stupid is this? Remember when Marvin the Martian was going to blow up the Earth, because it obstructed his view of Venus? And how Bugs Bunny stopped him by stealing the Illudium Q36 Space Modulator? Well, in the Star Trek universe, Bugs would be doing time. Probably in a room filled with Roseanne lookalikes wearing spandex uniforms, walking through doors going WHEET! all day. It would be heck. At least until the Kaboom. The Earth-shattering Kaboom.

Now, for those of you somewhat confused as to where you fit in the whole geek grand scheme of things, fear not, the heroes of Brunching Shuttlecocks are here to help:  Note, don't worry if you have no earthly idea of what a "furry" is, or "cosplay" instead, consider yourself lucky.  The problem with knowledge is once it's out of the bottle, it's impossible to put back in.  Ignorance is bliss. They should add a category for emo.  You know, emo can be deadly.  So can too much cowbell.

I'm not done with Columbia U just yet...

And neither is Protein Wisdom, especially when it comes to military recruiters on campus, discrimination against a certain protected class, and hypocrisy