Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Seems like everything I've heard today has been really dark and disturbing. It started with the radio. I love love love This American Life. It's a show on NPR where they tell three stories all along the same theme. I listened between doing shopping and lunch, so I missed a few bits of it. The theme of the week was pets.

The first story bothered me a hell of a lot. David Sedaris told a "funny" story about how many pets his family had and how they kept dying. He told how his mother put a puppy in an oven to keep it warm after it "died" (turned out it wasn't dead). In a 150 degree oven. Story ("joke") after story about how all these animals of his died, all told in a way that was supposed to be "funny". It made me want to cry or throw up.

Then I went into a store and so missed the middle story (though looking at the website, it did look to be a lighter one). I also missed the first minute or two of the final story, which turned out to be a big issue. The story was about a man and his mentally ill brother. The two lived together because the brother couldn't live alone. Somehow the brother got an armadillo as a pet. The story told about how he took care of the animal (badly, scaring it on purpose and crap). The story went on, the brother died because he ran out naked in traffic. The healthy brother found the armadillo and took it into his own home. Then he described, in great detail, how he would hold the armadillo under water for minutes at a time, closer and closer to drowning it and in detail how it fought to get up to the air, how it reacted when he pulled it out of the tub. I wanted to throw up. In the end, the host mentioned it was a fictional story. At first I was relieved (I was so sick at the thought of someone doing that -- it was written in such detail I thought it had to be real, first hand experience). But then I got mad. Even fictional, the story made me feel so bad. So angry and hurt and sick and mad. Never before have I wanted to write an author to tell him he shouldn't have written about something. (Which I suppose means it was well-written, that it affected me that much. Still.)

If you want to hear the whole This American Life show, click here The armadillo story is Resurrection, the third one. I can't recommend it.

Then I got home and heard this song. I liked it a lot. I suggest listening to this version first, with just the lyrics and not the official video:


It's a sad but beautiful song with interesting lyrics. Then I watched the official video. Warning for hate crimes:

Oh my god, I could barely watch that! D: Knowing that that sort of thing happens in real life, that it happens now... gah. It's powerful, I think it's worth watching, but man was it sad and hard to watch.

After all that, I think we need a teddy bear to hug. This might not be the bear we're looking for:

Television news is doing something that really pisses me off. Any video that's popular online gets a showing on the evening news now. It's not even just something that might pass as news, cute puppy/kitten videos, kids, any video that goes viral now ends up on the evening news.

Oh no, please, don't give us actual in depth news coverage, keep the cute kitten videos coming!

This Invisible Children/Kony video is now of course making its round on the TV and radio news shows. But has any news show given any details on the other side? The fact that the Invisible Children foundation exists to pay its staff and the film makers, that it gives only a tiny fraction of the money to actually help? The fact that Kony isn't even in the country anymore? Does the news mention that the founders of Invisible Children actually worked with the bad guys before making this video? (The video is made to take people in though, so it's not surprising that it moved folks.)

Yes. One station did. NPR.

Lots of groups (*cough* right wing, conservative ones) attack NPR. LIBERALS! Oh so left wing! But know what? They're also the ones who do the in depth news. They don't just give 15-30 seconds per story, they'll take as long as needed to cover it. I've listened to 10 minute or longer news stories on one single issue! Not to mention, they cover all the stuff that more mainstream media doesn't.

(This week they've been running a series of stories about a weed called pigweed and how cotton farmers are dealing with it. What I've taken from the story: Farmers know way too little about evolution. They think that since they had one herbicide that worked on it, it would work forever. Hello, evolution calling, it's for you! Think of predators and prey: One gets better so the other has to get better so the first has to get better again. IT'S HOW LIFE WORKS! But no, please, go on thinking that one herbicide will work forever! /rant rant)

Anyway. Last year NPR was the charity I donated to. This year it's ASPCA. (I had thought that signing up for the monthly donations would make those commercials less effective on me. Wrong. They just make me want to donate more. :/ ) They're both worthy, I have no idea which I'll give to next year.

Edit: ARGRRRAGRUG*#$(_FG!# And as I post this, a news-talk show is doing another story on that Kony video. Sigh. I have to stop watching the news. This is making me rage.

Edit 2: And of course I'm not saying that the kids don't need help. Anyone in a warzone needs help, especially children. It's the self-serving Invisible Children foundation that I'm talking about.

Edit 3: Speaking of videos, eek, wow! This is all animation and motion capture, not a real person.
Video here. The middle of the video (which is what shows when you embed) is suggestive, so I'm linking to it instead. It is mostly work safe, though sex is mentioned.

In no special order, the three things I've run into today that I love:

1) Did you watch season one of The Walking Dead? If not, go do it now!

An amusing look at 'behind the scenes' of season two. I can't wait!

2) Trailer for Pixar's new movie: Brave. Watch it in the highest HD you can! The animation is SO GOOD (other than the sadly cartoonish person). I have no idea what the plot is going to be about, but man, I loved the animation on the horse, the grass, the bear!

3) NWS! I loved this week's oglaf comic to death! Sexy and hot and I love how it's written. Again, NWS!

And for the thing everyone other than me loves: Former President Bill Clinton is a brony! NPR has a show that does a section called "Not My Job", during it they quiz the people on some topic that they should have no idea about. They asked Clinton questions based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. He got all of them right. How funny is that!

I've given that show so many chances, I wish I could get into it, but I can't. I've given it three chances, started from the beginning, watched the recommended eps, I think it's just not a match for me. :/

And unrelated: I should make a WoW post sometime, but my enjoyment of the game is really low right now, so I keep starting posts and then going "meh" and deleting them instead of finishing.

I was listening to NPR on the way home from the farmers market, and they kept running a promo on an upcoming story: a clip of a kindly sounding southern woman explaining how she had faith that they'd get through the lack of jobs/money after the Gulf oil spill. She used the quote "God feeds the birds".

It made me smile every time. A simple statement showing so much faith. (Misplaced and illogical yeah, but still faith.) Then the whole story played and I heard the entire quote. "God feeds the birds, and we are far more valuable to him than they are."

UGH UGH UGH. And so once more religion has shown its true colors. The self-centered-ness of it! Why couldn't the first half of the quote be enough for her? Then I came home and googled, and found that that's actually what it says in the Bible.

I'm just so UGH now. I hate it, hate it hate it hate it, when I find something about religion I can like and then inevitably it does a 180.

Heck, looking at the whole quote from the Bible, what does this even imply?

MATTHEW 6:26 LB
26 Look at the birds! They don't worry about what to eat-- they
don't need to sow or reap or store up food -- for your heavenly
Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than
they are.

Is that saying that if you believe in god you shouldn't have to work for your food? (Not to mention it's wrong. Some birds do store food!)

Heh. Analyzing Bible quotes, a first for Thistle LJ!

Edit: Now that I think about it, isn't there something in the Bible that says you're supposed to be humble? Isn't saying "God loves me more than X, teehee~!" just the opposite of humble? Bah!