What I get out of this is a low-level sense of fear that the reportage we get on the subject of scientology — or the lack thereof, more accurately — is a reflection of a more thorough penetration of the media by this very media-savvy organization.

And then I accuse myself of being paranoid and move on… but never completely without a care.

Scientology is the one and only thing that makes me glad it is impossible to be elected in the US or Canada without professing to some christian belief system.

This post brought to you as a tiny, tiny shot from the Internet’s side of Scientology vs. The Internet.

I finally got around to checking it out, and I have to admit, there’s a lot there.

It’s a time-consumer, no question, with the video talks running to 20 minutes each, so you might not get to see all of it at a shot, but I’m convinced it’s worthwhile. Right now I’m watching a talk on the application of economics to explaining AIDS in Africa, and there’s more like that.

Check it out.

We’ve all heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech, and now more information is going to come out, leading to a wave of media speculation, blog postings (my bad), and calls for emotionally-driven action.

So, how will you react?

Will you use this incident as a stalking horse for your issue of choice, as the gun-control and pro-gun lobbies are doing?

Will you demand immediate, emotion-fueled legislation aimed at preventing another event just like this, forgetting that almost every other tragedy will be very little like this one?

Will you point your finger at everyone, demanding that someone who is alive and can feel your revenge take some part of the fall?

Will you forget, next time, that none of the quick fixes you demanded this time made a difference?

Will you remember that we live in the safest, least-violent epoch in human history, with lower violent crime rates and murder rates than humanity has enjoyed at any time in history?

Will you glue yourself to the television, to WikiPedia, to Metafilter, to Google News, to Little Green Footballs, to the Virginia Tech website, to CNN, NBC, CBS, and Fox, thereby providing validation to those that would use their homicidal urges as a cry for attention?

Will you make no difference at all?

What I’m actually posting on is an excellent interview with Maynard James Keenan (of Tool) at the Onion AV Club.

The quote that really got me is this one:

All I can do is say I smell a rat. I don’t know where it is or what kind of rat it is, but as an artist, I can express how [I feel about it]. But I couldn’t responsibly stand up and tell people which way to go, because then I’m just as guilty as the people who are telling everybody else what to do and where to go.

He’s quite a guy, one with whom I’ve no doubt that I could argue for days.

It’s video, so don’t bother, on a slow connection.

Update:

The file at the original location was moved, so this Youtube link has it. If I find the better version again, I’ll upload it and host it here.

Justice vs. Simian: We Are Your Friends

Update again

The link is fixed, it’s a local file now. Will work ‘til doomsday.

This is a bit like coming home after a long voyage, or finding a friend long thought lost.

I’m an emotional geek, I know.

Not to say I’ve been verbose, or anything like that.

But what a game, again.

On schooly notes, I’ve got a final exam tomorrow that I expect to do… poorly at. If I had known that Philosophy courses deliberately eschewed clear english in favour of meaningless jumbles of ten-dollar words, I’d have passed on the course. Now, I’ll be happy to simply pass the course.

Bah.

W: Found a nifty site called Luxist that blogs the things of the rich and famous. I smack my lips in consumerist glee at some of them, and shake my head in vague discomfort at others.

S: Against all odds, my iPod works again!

If you could see me, I couldn’t claim to be dancing a merry jig. Since you can’t, I am.

A quick sum-up:

Work: Active, rewarding, and busy. Friends: Hanging out with a bit more, which is good. School: Really iffy on Philosophy 250 — this is some wonky stuff, if you ask me.

The world: Fucked, man. Hypocrisy in Congress down south, media shutdown up here…

I’d rather not think about it.

Yeek, that’s a workout. It might be the circuitous sentence structures, it might be the content. But either way, it’s hard going.

So, of course, I grabbed some Lagavulin 16-year scotch to sip as I educated.

Life is pretty good.

Oh, and in other news, my local hockey team beat their local hockey team. And what a game, it was. Wow.

In yet other news, did anyone notice the geographically-relevant link list down and to the right? I’ve added “Sites near me” to the sidebar. It’s possible that there’s even a useful community of bloggers in Edmonton. Although, odds are slim.

Yes, it’s a swaglist. Sue me, it’s my website.

(On a related note, by the way, Char and Simon will be getting posting setup at Morruz when they take off. So you’ll all have to read it for their travels, too. I hope that Simon will post there, with a link over from his usual haunts, so that the travel docs can be kept together.)

Anyhoo.

So, there’s a few techie things that I’ll get out of the way ASAP. I’m looking for a Microsoft Bluetooth (wireless) mouse. I’m also looking for some kind of USB2 external hard drive in the medium-large range. Nothing insane. Last, but not least, I’m interested in a couple of computer games. For Windows (sad, but I installed Windows on the laptop just this weekend. I’m a sucker for techie playthings, what can I say). The games are HalfLife 2, and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Heh.

Books are cool, too, of course. I’m low on literature, despite Amy’s best efforts to swamp me

Anyway, that’s about it for the technolust. I don’t know why people keep saying I’m hard to buy for, since I usually make it pretty clear what I want.

Oh, this isn’t going to be a “life story” sort of post. It’s more of a corny way of saying “Here’s what I’ve been up to over the last week.”

Char and I have been doing well, thanks for asking.

I’ve seen some pretty funny theatre in the last 24 hours, and a well-written play not too long before. The former is, of course, Die Nasty, and the latter is a Stuart Lemoine piece called The Velvet Shock. The play was enjoyable. A bit dark in humour, which I like, and with a hint of a happy, romantic ending. And a talented cast, bolstered in no small part by a skilled (and attractive!) supporting actress in the role of the niece.

I’ve come to a conclusion that, practically speaking, there is one thing that irks me more than anything else when dealing with friends. I don’t mind if plans change, and someone can’t do something with me that was planned. That’s cool. But in this age of mobile and ubiquitous communication, for christ’s sake, call me. Just dial a damned number and say “Sorry, Chris, I can’t make it to [thing].” Is it that bloody hard?

Grrr…

I just realized that the above complaint was the blog post that had been tickling about my head for the last day and a half. Glad to get that out of my system.

So, no big plans, really. I think I’m going to investigate writing my first serious OS X program, to do some bookkeeping and synchronization of my pair of ITunes libraries. Just metadata, I think, but you never know… I might get ambitious.

From the FCC to the MPAA, with stops at high schools and the Republican/Democrat conventions in between. It’d be funny if it weren’t true. As it is, it makes me want to cry.