tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77362869296047635682024-03-14T08:23:49.416-06:00Headline TrashAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-33614390116998365832013-04-03T09:10:00.001-06:002013-04-03T09:12:54.990-06:00Dixie State University app--WTF?<div id="fb-root">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKJKFcDc0lGq22fAaFkQ84ZsS0U_wZxX4624PbowmYunEOQf6DxopPgQy5QOvfLz06nLHkB5EsLyYbcfBebb88olGj6Y8Rp9RQLbF2ply9cVtbAlOkgMywoKl7HvRo5kK8-zbBDBzNwY/s1600/dixieapp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKJKFcDc0lGq22fAaFkQ84ZsS0U_wZxX4624PbowmYunEOQf6DxopPgQy5QOvfLz06nLHkB5EsLyYbcfBebb88olGj6Y8Rp9RQLbF2ply9cVtbAlOkgMywoKl7HvRo5kK8-zbBDBzNwY/s400/dixieapp.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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At the risk of treading on the toes of Heather Harrison, who writes our publication’s “Tech Sassy,” I have to profess my love for smartphone applications.</div>
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There’s seriously an app for everything. I can shave a fake beard from my iPhone, I can build a town full of My Little Ponies on my iPad, and I can be sent updates each time the Catholic Church elects a new pope.</div>
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From flashlights to calorie counters, the App Store is my go-to place whenever I want to access something easily from my iPhone.</div>
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However, there is one app I find sadly lacking: Dixie State University’s.</div>
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I’ll be honest. I didn’t necessarily like it when it was first introduced, and I really don’t like it now that it’s become the school’s forgotten project.</div>
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Granted, the app developers are not students, so I’m not playing the blame game here. Well, I suppose I am a little.</div>
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When the Dixie State app was first unveiled, I wondered what its purpose would be. Would it let students look up their grades? Would it notify us of upcoming assignments? Would it allow us to pay our tuition online, register for classes, check testing center hours or anything functional like that?</div>
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Well, no. But hey, it does play the Dixie fight song—an instrumental version, anyway.</div>
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What the app does offer is a list of links that take the user to Dixie.edu, Facebook or Twitter. The rest of the app hasn’t been updated since it was first launched.</div>
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If you check the “Campus Map” area of the app, it will show you a satellite view of campus, complete with the old Whitehead building and sans Holland Centennial Commons.</div>
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I posed a rhetorical question via Twitter a couple of months ago and asked no one in particular if the DSU app has been forgotten and obsolete. Since then, I was tracked down by the powers that be and was informed about the app’s status.</div>
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Yes, the app was designed a few years ago. And now everything on it is web-based. So that means everything you’re finding on the Dixie State University app is something that’s already on Dixie.edu; when DSU’s website is updated, the links are copied to the app.</div>
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I’m not an app developer, but I certainly use tons of them.</div>
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A couple of years ago, a representative from The Spectrum came to our staff and asked for our input regarding the city’s publication. We said The Spectrum might reach a larger audience if it created an app. The representative poo-poo’d our suggestion and said users can access the Internet from their mobile devices, so why do they need an app?</div>
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The difference between websites and apps is a big one. Most websites are loaded with html code, which loads slowly on mobile devices and makes things hard to read and navigate.</div>
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And websites that have mobile versions are often leaving things out that make the whole surfing experience cohesive.</div>
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So an app can make all the difference in the world. They’re designed specifically for mobile devices, so you know you’re not going to have to zoom in on some crazy text or attempt to type in, say, your student ID into some ridiculously small window.</div>
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So when the DSU app to redirects me to Dixie.edu, I just have to ask: Why have an app if there’s no intention of utilizing the purpose of having an app?</div>
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Here’s what would make the DSU app work best. Yes, there can still be links to press releases and the athletic department’s news. But there should also be an area where students can log in and view holds, grades and account information. We should be able to pay fees and tuition if we want, and we should be able to access our schedules.</div>
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Oh, and the app should be regularly updated.</div>
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I’m giving the idea of a school app five out of five Fabs because the potential is there. But I’m giving our current app, and its stagnation, two out of five trashes and a flip phone—because you don’t need a smartphone if you’re planning on using the current DSU app. You’re going to have to go to computer anyway, since it’s going to direct you to Dixie’s homepage.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-61740788951164581192013-03-28T02:07:00.004-06:002013-03-28T02:36:54.457-06:00Marriage Equality, Or Am I Seriously Writing About This In 2013? - By Taylor Grin<div id="fb-root"></div>
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I’ve been involved in a discussion for about two hours now about gay marriage, and I’m really getting tired of making the same points over and over again. So, let me make this a (maybe, kinda?) friendly FAQ on why gay marriage should be legal.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why should gays be allowed to marry?</strong></div>
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Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, there is a guarantee of equal protection under the law. States can’t deny rights to some which it grants to others.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But gays are free to marry whoever they want… as long as its a member of the opposite sex.</strong></div>
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Let me put this statement in perspective: “But blacks can marry whoever they want, as long as it’s another black.” “A woman can marry whoever she wants, as long as her father approves.”</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But marriage is for creating babies!</strong></div>
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So infertile people can’t get married?</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ok, marriage is for people with the parts to make babies, whether or not they actually do.</strong></div>
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David Hume covered this in 1740. arguing that you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is.” This is to say, you can’t argue that something should be a given way, just because it happens to be that way.</div>
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Let’s make this easier to understand. Survival of the Fittest dictates that the fittest will survive. A clean reading of this would lead some to conclude that we should kill the infirm or weak. Obviously we find this unethical. So, we find that which <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is</em> the case, often shouldn’t <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ought</em> to be the case.</div>
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This is also called the Naturalistic Fallacy.</div>
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If we banned gay marriage because gay people can’t have children, we’d have to ban infertile people from marriage.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You need two parents, one of each gender, to properly raise children.</strong></div>
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Putting aside the issues of ambiguity in gender roles and the distinction between sex and gender, this point is strictly speaking <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">wrong. </em>Not “In my opinion wrong,” but factually wrong according to the <a href="http://www.advocate.com/society/modern-families/2012/06/14/american-psychological-association-says-gay-parents-just-good" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">APA</a>:</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“On the basis of a <strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">remarkably consistent body of research</strong> on lesbian and gay parents and their children, the American Psychological Association and other health, professional, and scientific organizations have concluded that there is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation.” (emphasis mine.)</em></div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But marriage is a religious institution.</strong></div>
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No, marriage is a social contract and a legal unification of two people for legal protection, power of attorney and management of estates. Some churches perform marriages, but the civil and legal rights afforded to married couples are granted and guaranteed by states, not churches.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But you can’t redefine marriage.</strong></div>
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Marriage has had a definition constantly in flux. I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">marriage</a> to look at how it’s changed over the years.</div>
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If for some reason you don’t like Wikipedia, then check out this <a href="http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">history</a> at a German university website, which says basically the same thing, but is less easy to read.</div>
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The nuclear family that you’re familiar with is basically a white, suburban, American construct. You’ll find all sorts of successful family arrangements in different places, as far away as Brazil where children are raised among mothers, aunts and cousins, to the inner city where whole communities are involved in the upbringing of children.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But God says!/ America is a Christian country</strong>.</div>
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No, he doesn’t/ no it’s not.</div>
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The definition of marriage is not very clear from a Christian reading of the Bible. I think this video expresses that pretty well.<br />
<span class="embed-youtube" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: block; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="328" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OFkeKKszXTw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" type="text/html" width="529"></iframe></span></div>
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And America is not a Christian nation. There is the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . ..” but I find a more important point to be the Treaty of Tripoli.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Treaty of Tripoli? What’s that?</strong></div>
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The treaty of Tripoli ratified a peace between America and Tripoli after a short-lived war between the two nations. Every single member of Congress voted in favor of it, and one of the Founding Fathers, President John Adams, signed it. It contained the following statement:</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,</strong>—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslims" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Muslims">Muslims</a>],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammedan" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Mohammedan">Mohammedan</a>] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”</em><br />
<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(emphasis mine.)</em></div>
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So no, America is not a Christian Nation.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But the Declaration of Independence says there’s a Creator.</strong></div>
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The Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document. Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, Treaties are legally binding. And haven’t we gotten far from the topic of gay marriage?</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But my priest will have to wed gay couples</strong></div>
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No, (s)he won’t the second part of the establishment clause</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But if we allow gay marriage, then next will be polygamy, incest or even bestiality!</strong></div>
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No. What you’re using is called a <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">slippery slope</a>. It’s a logical fallacy where people say that because you’re doing one thing, a whole series of irrational events will follow. The same argument was used with interracial marriage.</div>
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Check out this example of an argument against interracial marriage from ‘Loving V. The State of Virginia, 1967:’</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It is clear from the most recent available evidence on the psycho-sociological aspect of this question that intermarried families are subjected to much greater pressures and problems then those of the intermarried and that the state’s prohibition of interracial marriage for this reason stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry and the prevention of the marriage of people who are mentally incompetent.”</em><br />
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But gay people make me feel icky</strong></div>
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Guess what? Interracial couples made people feel pretty icky 50 years ago too. Giving women the right to vote, or treating black people equally made people feel pretty icky a not-so-long time ago.</div>
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Hell, just over 300 years ago, the idea that independent colonies should represent themselves made a lot of Europeans feel very icky. But we live in America, a land where people deserve equal treatment and the freedom to pursue their happiness.</div>
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The right of gay parents to make decisions about their children’s medical treatment in hospitals, or the right of gay couples to pass on their estate at death without vastly higher taxation does no harm to anyone else.</div>
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The religious are afraid that society will crumble, but society didn’t crumble when blacks and whites could marry, or when women got the right to vote.</div>
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Equal protection under the law means you’ll be safe too when a religion or philosophy you don’t agree with tries to infringe on your rights. Denying rights for religions has an insidious way of harming everyone in the long run.</div>
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Let me end with a quote I’m sure you’ve heard before. Denying rights to people is dangerous, because you never know if you’ll be the next “non-traditionalist” to have them denied.</div>
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"First they came for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Communist">communists</a>,<br />
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.</div>
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Then they came for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Socialist">socialists</a>,<br />
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.</div>
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Then they came for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unionist" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #990000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Trade unionist">trade unionists</a>,<br />
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.</div>
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Then they came for me,<br />
and there was no one left to speak for me."</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Read More from Taylor Grin at <a href="http://tmgrin.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Taylor Grin's Blog.</a></span></div>
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/03/marriage-equality-or-am-i-seriously.html" data-width="600" data-num-posts="10"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-77059921771427010102013-03-25T16:26:00.002-06:002013-04-09T15:03:27.985-06:00Columnist Under Attack; We Need Your Feedback!<div id="fb-root">
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Censored_stamp.jpg/800px-Censored_stamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Censored_stamp.jpg/800px-Censored_stamp.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As you may or may not know, in addition to running The Skewed Review (which is trademarked, by the way), I'm also the editor-in-chief at <a href="http://www.dixiesunnews.com/" target="_blank">Dixie Sun News.</a> </span></div>
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We made local headlines this year when we started running a sex column. Believe me, some of the more religious among us here in southern Utah were having <i>none of that!</i> But ultimately, we fought for our freedom of speech, and the column is still being published.</div>
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But we recently received a letter along with a petition.</div>
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The petition read (and this is verbatim; I haven't fixed any punctuation errors, no matter how much they bugged me): <i>A column recently added in the </i>Dixie Sun News<i> is threatening to take away the pride, honor and tradition of Dixie State University and its surrounding community. A recently added bi-weekly column in the </i>Dixie Sun News<i> is dedicated to the topic of sex and talks about just that; sexual relations. As this topic is and should not be considered "news" <b>we</b> are trying to have the article removed from the </i>Dixie Sun News<i>. As a current student, alumni or citizen of St. George please help Dixie State University keep its pride, honor and tradition! Thanks!</i></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: 10pt;" style="font-size: 10pt;"><em><br /></em></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: 10pt;" style="font-size: 10pt;">The petition was signed by 115 people--not all of them students. I don't even know if any of them are readers. But, the current student population at Dixie State University is 7,709. So that's just a little bit of perspective for you.</span></div>
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Here's the letter, and again, it's verbatim. I haven't fixed any punctuation or grammar.</div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: 10pt;" style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>As a current student at Dixie State University, I feel it important to voice my opinion and the opinion of my fellow classmates, alumni, and community members. Dixie State University has a name that represents integrity, pride, honor and virtue. “The Dixie Spirit,” as it has come to be known, is felt not only by the students who attend this university, but also by the members of the community in which we are privileged to reside. I have attached a list which contains the names of those who share this concern, support this letter, and wish to preserve the good name of Dixie State University.</i></span></div>
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<i>We feel that the erotic sex column casts a dark shadow on the name that Dixie State University and the surrounding community upholds and continues to work to establish. In order to maintain the integrity and standards we hold as a part of the Dixie Spirit, we ask that the erotic column in Dixie Sun News be discontinued.</i></div>
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<i>The erotic column is tarnishing the name that Dixie State University has accumulated over the years. As you are aware, Dixie State recently celebrated its centennial year and achieved university status. Dixie State University created a name that made its alumni proud to say they attended Dixie State and received a diploma. Our most recent building bears the name of a man who stands for honor, integrity and virtue. We desire to have the new Dixie State University carry a name that represents the same integrity, virtue, honor and pride for all of the alumni and current students. The Dixie State University name should give hope to future students who want to become a part of the Dixie State tradition and be known not only for their academic successes, but also for their moral integrity and outstanding character.</i></div>
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<i>Our greatest concern regarding the erotic column appearing in Dixie Sun News is that it makes pornographic literature available to minors. As Dixie State University has a preschool on campus and is host to a number of high school students currently enrolled, the material presented in the column is inappropriate and should not be accessible to underage individuals.</i></div>
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<i>With the many talented writers on the Dixie Sun News staff, surely there are more positive and helpful articles to be written. As Dixie Sun News is funded with the tuition paid by students, we feel that the newspaper should reflect the values and viewpoints of all of the students who attend the university, not just a select few. We feel that a column on how to overcome addiction or how to achieve academic success would prove to be of more benefit to the student body and alumni who read the paper than a column on erotic sex.</i></div>
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<i>We ask that you seriously consider our request to preserve and keep the Dixie State tradition. As concerned students, alumni and community members, we ask that the erotic column be discontinued.</i></div>
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<i>Sincerely,</i></div>
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<i>Sean Cardon</i></div>
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<b>The following is my formal response to the letter.</b></div>
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To Cardon and his fellow petitioners: </div>
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We at Dixie Sun News are first and foremost happy that you care enough about the school and our publication to take action on an issue you feel so strongly about. We wish more students would get involved in the same manner in which you are. </div>
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However, we must address several items we fear you may be misinformed about.</div>
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First, we must clarify that no tuition money is allocated toward Dixie Sun News. We are funded through a combination of student fees and advertising. </div>
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Second, labeling our column as "pornography" is simply untrue. Pornography is defined as material that's specifically meant to sexually arouse a person. We have not published, nor do we intend to publish, anything of that nature. We publish our column as a means of education and entertainment. The author of the column is writing content that pertains to <a data-mce-href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html" href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html">70 percent of the population</a>. Yes, 7 in ten 19-year-olds have had sex. Ignoring this won't make the statistics go away. </div>
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Regarding your suggestions for potential columns, we welcome any and all writers who want to contribute to Dixie Sun News. We've had a variety of column topics in years' past from politics to health and from movies to technology. We would welcome any student who wants to write a column on religion or drug rehabilitation. </div>
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But a column is best written by a person who has knowledge of the topic and is willing to write new material every week or so. We don't assign column topics; columnists pitch topic ideas to our editors. And to date, we haven't turned down a single column idea. </div>
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As far as representing the values of Dixie State University, one of DSU's key goals and values is diversity. </div>
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According to the <a data-mce-href="http://www.dixie.edu/accreditation/dscs_mission_and_core_themes.php" href="http://www.dixie.edu/accreditation/dscs_mission_and_core_themes.php">college's mission and core values page,</a> "[DSU] will promote diversity among its employees and student body to enrich the teaching and learning environment. [DSU] will provide diverse educational, economic, cultural, and recreational opportunities."</div>
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The Dixie Sun News would be doing both itself and the college a disservice if it <em>didn't</em> attempt to offer content to every demographic on campus. As you stated, "We feel that the newspaper should reflect the values and viewpoints of all of the students who attend the university, not just a select few."</div>
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Currently, we can honestly say we do reflect the values and viewpoints of <em>all</em> students. We cover student government, sports, gallery showings, theatrical performances, service projects, club news, student housing, politics, food, technology, films and myriad topics in between. It just so happens that one of those topics is on sexuality—something that pertains to at least <a data-mce-href="http://www.suu.edu/ss/aod/pdf/executive-summary-11.pdf" href="http://www.suu.edu/ss/aod/pdf/executive-summary-11.pdf">49.9 percent of Utah's college students.</a></div>
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It's safe to say that almost half of our readership is not a "select few." One could consider 115 signatures, not all of which are students', from a campus of almost 8,000 to be a better representation of a "select few." </div>
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And to be fair, when we conducted our poll earlier this year for the article, "<a data-mce-href="http://www.dixiesunnews.com/articles/2013/01/30/sex-column-pole/" href="http://www.dixiesunnews.com/articles/2013/01/30/sex-column-pole/">Students polled; majority say sex column OK,</a>" by Heather Dake, we spoke with people who actually read Dixie Sun News. While we don't doubt your petitioners are concerned about this topic, we don't know if they are readers.</div>
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And finally, the numbers themselves do not lie. The column is one of the most read articles on DixieSunNews.com, second only to the Macklemore coverage. How can we logically say the column in question is something our readers do not want when it's part of the most popular content on our website?</div>
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However, despite the amount of support we have received for keeping the column, your concerns and actions have not fallen on deaf ears. We have drafted a new and final poll regarding the column. You can find it at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/dixiesunnews" target="_blank">Facebook.com/DixieSunNews. </a></div>
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This will be the last chance for our readers to decide if the column should remain as a bi-weekly part of our printed issue, if it should be published online only (thus eliminating any concerns of physical distribution to non-college students on campus), or if it should cease being published completely.</div>
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We urge you to take the poll and share it with your friends. This poll will decide the fate of our column on sexuality. </div>
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Thank you very much for your ongoing concern for our institution and our publication. </div>
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-Matthew Jacobson, Editor-in-Chief</div>
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<b>So what do you think? Should we keep the column, or should it go? <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DixieSunNews?ref=ts&fref=ts" target="_blank">Click here to take the poll.</a> Haven't read the column in question? Well, <a href="http://www.dixiesunnews.com/articles/2013/03/12/erotic-topic-5/" target="_blank">have a peek at the latest one.</a></b></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-2620678514524961112013-03-19T18:14:00.001-06:002013-03-19T18:17:29.139-06:00The First Step To Solving A Hipster Problem Is Admitting You Have One<div id="fb-root"></div>
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What defines a hipster?<br />
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I see what I believe to be hipsters all around me, all the time. They're usually wearing wrinkled plaid or some shirt they picked up from Hot Topic (that's meant to look like it's been picked up from a thrift shop) and some ill-fitting skinny jeans or a pair of olive green corduroys.<br />
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They're hair is impeccably styled to look as though it hasn't been styled at all, their non-functioning glasses are usually huge and <a href="http://www.malcolmx.com/about/photos.html" target="_blank">reminiscent of Malcolm X's</a>, and they're often wearing a pair of Converse that's been intricately laced to give the appearance of nonchalant lacing.<br />
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But until now, I've been deceiving myself about hipsterism. It's not about the clothes. It's about the attitude.<br />
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A hipster, by all accounts, is a derogatory term. Even people who fit every definition of the word would never define themselves that way. Because labeling yourself as some demographic is too conforming, and hipsters are far too cool to place themselves as a part of one type of social group.<br />
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And that's what I believe makes a hipster. A person doesn't like or dislike things based on taste, a person likes or dislikes things based on the tastes of others. Remember when Modest Mouse was a little more modest? Yes, those were the days when a hipster would admit to loving the music. But then the band got a little more popular, so, logically, the hipster crowd became disinterested. And now, as Modest Mouse returns to its obscure home from whence it came, I'd say hipsters are free to love them once again.<br />
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I don't even know why I went on that Modest Mouse tirade. I don't know if I could identify one of their songs if it was blasting in my face while one of the band members continually beat me with baseball bat inscribed with the words: "This Song Is By Modest Mouse."<br />
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But I'm sure you get what I'm saying. But here's the sad and scary realization I had the other day: I think I might be a hipster.<br />
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I was doing research for the Fabutrash Film of the Week and the Podcast Pick for April and it suddenly occurred to me that I was purposefully avoiding films and podcasts of fame and notoriety. I tried to convince myself that I was only doing so in order to bring lesser-known titles to the masses.<br />
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But I had to admit to myself, and now the world, that I get a joy out of loving things that most people don't. I am such a fan of grindhouse cinema and pulp films--especially when I'm the only one who's heard of them.<br />
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And give me an obscure book to read. I'll read the hell out of it and then be fein joylessness when I say, "Well, you probably haven't read it."<br />
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And the things I secretly love are the things that other people love openly. I'm notorious for hating Harry Potter, but secretly, I could watch those movies all day. And I was so into the books, I actually read them while driving.<br />
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Yes. I was so into the wizarding world of Harry Potter that I literally put my life, along with dozens of others, at risk. But until now, I'd be hard pressed to admit such an atrocity.<br />
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I feel like I'm at hipster's anonymous meeting right now.<br />
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Hello my name is Matty, and I was admitting I was a hipster before admitting being a hipster was cool.<br />
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But you know what? I think I'm justified because there's one thing out there that I've never lied about loving, no matter how mainstream it is: Lady Gaga. I admit that I liked her <i>after</i> she was cool. I proudly sport my "Fame" tattoo. I openly call myself a Little Monster.<br />
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So while this article may seem pointless to you, to me it's a piece of solidarity. Although I'm a hipster in every other aspect of my life, there's a part of me that's still human because I'm willing to admit that I am into something as mainstream as Lady Gaga.<br />
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I'm rating myself one out of five Trashes for my love of loving obscure things.<br />
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But you know what? I'm also rating myself five out of five Fabs for loving one of the most wonderful things that can be loved.</div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The majority rules.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That’s the way it’s been since the conception of our country, but we’ve got to ask ourselves the question: Just because the majority thinks something is OK, does that mean it’s, indeed, the right thing to do?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whether or not the moral, ethical, cultural or religious decisions of the majority are beneficial to mankind, it’s no secret that being in the majority is the easiest thing a person can do. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of other people’s rights.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s incredibly effortless to be a community member in an area where the majority of the populous have the exact same beliefs. In St. George, for example, it’s safe to say that if you’re Mormon and conservative, then you’re already a part of the in crowd.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And this is reflected in our media outlets. It doesn’t matter which publication I turn to; I see a whole lot of playing safe. We’ve got religious columns written by retirees who’ve served multiple LDS missions. we’ve got opinion articles written by LDS mothers, and we have local talk shows that focus on the conservative demographic and a basic understanding that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is law.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the minority, unfortunately, is sorely underrepresented. And no, I’m not just talking about being a liberal gay guy, so don’t think I’m beating this dead horse I keep around just for fun.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m talking about people of multiple faiths: Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Paganism and any other religion that falls outside the LDS realm.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m speaking about people of different races: Hispanics, Asians, Europeans, Africans, islanders, tribe members and everyone whose skin happens to be a different shade than your average Utah vanilla.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And I’m talking about people with political affiliations outside of the conservative realm: liberals, green activists, libertarians, socialists and even Communists.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These demographics make up just a fraction of the white LDS-saturated southern Utah population, and actually, that’s OK. What’s not OK is when the majority of said saturation tries to enforce, nay, inflict the majority belief upon all classes, colors and religions.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The sad thing is I think a lot of St. George’s residents are fine with equality, but they’re just too afraid to be open about it for fear of retaliation from the vocal minority of the majority.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yeah, wrap your head around that for a second.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">St. George is a beautiful place full of beautiful people, but it’s also a harsh environment for those of us who don’t subscribe to the general way of thinking. The truly different of us are beaten into small social groups, thus putting an emphasis on the “minor” in minority.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those who refuse to be corralled are usually those who have given up trying to be members of the St. George community and end up either skipping town or just plain conforming.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I certainly hope this isn’t the goal of our town’s majority. After all, didn’t our LDS ancestors come to Utah because they’d been constantly driven out of numerous places due to their religious beliefs? Weren’t the early settlers scrutinized because they believed in polygamy as God’s law? Didn’t the Mormon faith eventually conform to the majority’s demands in order for Utah to gain statehood?</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Well, I suppose that last one is up for debate depending on what your religious views may be.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My hope is that we’re not living our lives hypocritically. I’m just offering a challenge: Hold yourself to your highest moral standards and live up to your beliefs. Make yourself the person you expect everyone else to be. And then leave it at that.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Let the rest of the people be who they want to be and live up to their own beliefs. Until southern Utah can learn to live and let live, I'm afraid I'm going to have to rate this town 3 1/2 out of five trashes. Come on, guys. Let's turn this trash into fab as soon as possible.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/theskewedreview" target="_blank">@TheSkewedReview on Twitter</a>, and "like" it on <a href="http://facebook.com/TheSkewedReview">Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview</a> for more pleasantly disagreeable conversations. </span></div>
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/03/well-be-back-soon.html" data-width="600" data-num-posts="50" data-colorscheme="dark"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-80574212958737533612013-03-01T03:55:00.001-07:002013-03-01T04:11:31.613-07:00Is It Just Plain Lazy to Write A Conservative Column In St. George? (The Answer is 'Yes') - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Think about it: Writing a conservative column in<br />St. George is like telling a group of plastic surgeons<br />that breast augmentation is totally fine.</i></span></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/" target="_blank">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a></div>
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<br/ >
<a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/03/is-it-just-plain-lazy-to-write.html" data-via="TheSkewedReview">Tweet</a>
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<br />
<br />
It’s incredibly easy to be an opinion writer, talk show host
and, well, <i>civilian </i>in an area where
the majority of the populous have the exact same beliefs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It doesn’t matter which publication I turn to; I see a whole
lot of playing safe. We’ve got religious columns written by retirees who’ve
served multiple LDS missions, we’ve got opinion articles written by an LDS
mother, and we have local talk shows that focus on the Republican demographic
and everything the Republican party supposedly stands for: conservative values
(whatever those are) and a belief that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints is law. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And when it comes to bringing the public what it wants, I
think our community’s publications do just that. We’ve got safe and sound
authors and talk show hosts who offer safe and sound content to an audience
that wants something safe and sound to read and listen to.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I wonder what it would be like to get up every day, write
opinion articles on how I think the LDS Church’s latest decision to do this or
that is great, how the liberals are destroying America, and how family home
evening is the best thing ever. Preaching to the choir is the easiest thing to do. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So you can understand why my little blackbird feathers get
easily ruffled when I think about how little work goes into being a conservative opinion writer in St. George. I’m not saying authors who choose to write faith-based,
conservatively valued content are bad. But I am wondering, why write articles
that are meant to persuade a group of people who are already on your side? It
just seems a bit, well, <i>lazy</i>, I guess. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Am I tooting my own horn here? I guess a couple of beeps are
in order. I am definitely writing for the St. George minority. I am blasted
every week for writing about such controversial topics as marriage equality and scrutinization of faith. It’s not easy to take a beating with each article in the community we live in.
But I do it anyway because, as much as some people would like it to be this
way, we are not Hildale. We aren’t a bubbled-off city of robots that do what
they’re told to do and think what they’re told to think. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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OK, so it is a <i>little bit</i> like that. But that doesn't mean the <i>whole</i> community is full of robots.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
St. George is a beautiful place full of beautiful people.
But it’s also a harsh environment for those of us who don’t subscribe to the
general way of thinking. The truly artistic of us are either driven out of town
or made to conform—usually. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So the next time you read an article that’s not about how
great it is that the missionary age has been changed or how Mayor McArthur is
just a great guy with Dixie spirit, maybe take a second and reflect on how hard
it is to write an opposing opinion in this town. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This article is not written just about me, myself and I. If
you’ve lived and breathed in St. George, then you’ve also caught wind of a
column titled “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/EroticTopic?fref=ts" target="_blank">Erotic Topic</a>,” written by Katie McKellar, which focuses on sex,
sexuality, and sexual culture. And you’ve probably heard of another column called
“<a href="http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2013/02/23/on-kilter-knot-as-things-appear/" target="_blank">ON Kilter</a>,” by Dallas Hyland. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ve spoken with both these individuals, and both have felt
the wrath of the community for daring to talk about things like sex and the
environment, STDs and local political corruption, masturbation and
mismanagement of funds. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So if you haven’t already, check them both out and see a
couple of <i>real</i> hardworking authors
who are pushing the barriers of communication and thought in a community that,
for the most part, will have none of it.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
And if you’re of the “If you don’t like it, then get out”
mentality, then I’ll just ask that you silently reflect upon our LDS ancestors
who were forced out of many places for their religious beliefs. I’m sure it
wasn’t a good feeling for them, and it sure as hell isn’t a good feeling for
those of us who feel there is more than one way of living life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<br />
<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/03/is-it-just-plain-lazy-to-write.html" data-width="500" data-num-posts="50"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-37007331965524947162013-02-14T04:25:00.001-07:002013-02-14T04:30:37.094-07:00The Bullying Can End. It's Up To Us. - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNn63aZO5_-YI5eFeJrXP7Oe5B0qB05AYk5X2V9mN1OqpEfi_GvTn5AWcDQOq5tF5S5pPoMERAO_9uWOsD3qfiuTGdOJbJKHWcmXuwCLRcjvso4_nUm_END1IuD0nHqgFNNPeT4RSAzBs/s1600/Photo+on+2013-02-14+at+04.08+%232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNn63aZO5_-YI5eFeJrXP7Oe5B0qB05AYk5X2V9mN1OqpEfi_GvTn5AWcDQOq5tF5S5pPoMERAO_9uWOsD3qfiuTGdOJbJKHWcmXuwCLRcjvso4_nUm_END1IuD0nHqgFNNPeT4RSAzBs/s320/Photo+on+2013-02-14+at+04.08+%232.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Bullies are people, too. Maybe we can start at the source<br />and show them they can be loved without making<br />others miserable. Matty Jacobson owns, edits and<br />contributes to The Skewed Review.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/" target="_blank">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://activism.skewedreview.com/" target="_blank">ACTIVISM</a><br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bullies. They’re everywhere. They’re evil. They must go. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, we’re bombarded by the tribulations of bullying from
every media outlet on a daily basis. We’re constantly seeing the destruction
left in the wake of bullies—from your run-of-the-mill junior high school kid,
to the power-hungry alpha male at work. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bullies drive people to fear, sadness, depression, anger,
self-esteem issues, and, in the worst cases, suicide. We’re constantly seeing,
reading, hearing, and watching the pleas of victims and families of victims for
the bullying to stop. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what about the bullies themselves? Who will speak for
them?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, hold your horses that I assume you’ve got harnessed
right next to your computer. I’m not an advocate for bullying. But, I would
like to be an advocate for the bully—at least the person under the guise of the
bully. So please hear me out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have had the opportunity (if you can call it that) to be
on both sides of the fence. In my grade school and junior high school years, I
was bullied. Believe me, I was bullied so much that, had I not been duped into
a religious belief that hell awaited those who committed suicide, I would have
taken my life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was the “faggot” of every school I went to. I was odd, I
dressed differently (and by “differently” I mean “weird”), I was loud, I was
fat, and I was effeminate. I was shamed to tears on a daily basis, and believe me,
the tears did <i>not</i> help my reputation.
From fifth to 10<sup>th</sup> grade, my life was a living hell. I was convinced
by my peers that I was dumb, fat, ugly, queer, and completely unworthy to live.
I was so close to becoming a suicide statistic. I might as well have been
walking around with a noose around my neck; I wanted to hang myself every
waking moment of my life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That depression stayed with me. Later in life, when I
stopped believing so much in religion, I did try and take my life. When
something drastic happened, I’d momentarily slip back into that
junior high mentality, and I’d go to extremes. I cut and overdosed—four times. I was hospitalized for three of the four attempts. The
effects of bullying can last a lifetime.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But let me get back to my teenage years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the 10<sup>th</sup> grade mark, I changed schools. I went
to a place where nobody knew me. For some reason, I started making friends
there. Before I knew it, I was voted student body secretary. I had a close
group of friends that I considered family. I was, dare I say it, popular. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a matter of months my life changed like Rosie O’Donnell
when she came out. Only instead of changing from “sweetheart talk show host” to
“scary grudge-holding militant”, I went from “crying fat little fag” to
“obnoxiously confident queen.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then came the real world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once I was out of high school, I found the joys of clubs and
raves. Drum & bass, breakbeats, happy hardcore, and drugs fueled my
existence. I shed the pounds and was suddenly a slender, beautiful creature.
And that’s when I suddenly realized that I had to somehow stay on top of the
social food chain. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And there’s only one way to stay on top of the food chain:
consume the weak. Don’t let anyone tell you that “The Lion King” can’t teach
you a lesson. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I started becoming what I loathed the most when I was
younger: a bully. I talked trash about people I thought were weaker than I was.
I made people cry. I even destroyed people’s property for the sheer
entertainment value. And all for what? It’s because I didn’t want to be on the
other side of it again. It was much easier living life as a bully than as the
bullied. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But it was all fueled by fear. It was fueled by a low self-esteem. It was fueled by a mentality that if I didn't pick on the weak, then I was the weak. This is what drives most bullies to do what they do. They're still human, just like you and me. But under it all, they're just as scared as we are. They've just adapted to life and are surviving the only way they know how: by being the strongest, the scariest, the most wicked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So now I have a call to action for each and every one of
you. The fight to end bullying can’t just be about shaming bullies and telling
them they’re wrong. I think we need to start showing bullies that it’s completely
possible to be happy without treading on the lives of others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will my faithful readers please join in my plight and find
one bully this year. Find just one person who is making your life a living hell,
and try and see life from that person’s point of view. Let’s take that one
person and try and turn him or her into our friend.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We may not succeed, but at least we can say we tried. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, let me be the first. I'd like to turn myself into a friend. <a href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-open-letter-to-kate-dalley-and-her.html" target="_blank">In my last article, I called KateDalley a pervert.</a> Now, I still stand by my argument that too many people are
equating homosexuality with pedophilia, and I will never waver on that. But, in
my attempt to make my point, I started to become the bully again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will leave my original article as is so you can read
my words. I want you all to see how easily a person can become a bully--sometimes without even realizing it. But I will also make an amendment: My personal attacks on Dalley were unwarranted, uncalled for, unnecessary and wicked. I feel
threatened by Mrs. Dalley because I feel she is misinformed. And what I did,
calling her names, was a childish thing to do. It made me a villain. It made me
a bully. And I’m not proud of that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I am not making this apology because I was pressured
to—if you know me, then you’ll know I do things because I want to do them, not
because someone else tells me to do them. Does Dalley’s point of view still
piss me off? You bet your buttermilk biscuits it does. But do I hate Kate
Dalley? That can't be said because I don't know her personally. Do I have permission to call her names? No. And I am sorry. I was a
bully again, and that’s not acceptable. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s make 2013 the year we help a bully see that life can
be lived, happily at that, without having to feed on someone else’s life. Go
on. Go hug your bully. At least you can say you tried to make a difference.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<br />
<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-bullying-can-end-its-up-to-us-by.html" data-width="600" data-num-posts="50"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-80850060505846980012013-02-12T05:20:00.000-07:002013-02-12T05:23:59.095-07:00An Open Letter To Kate Dalley and Her Readers - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMU-zNNkmlLA6B_3KdmzXMGbffRYfcTp7Lg7lN4mFXIBjXr9QNRkIqH4Z8EtYLFB5xDF77jpVY8kynII4li3Efih4Ll4W_QwNfkQjj1flN0_paNhYIxx2ZgS6iG5KqzjfL9iQHyNGppPg/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-02-12+at+5.01.39+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMU-zNNkmlLA6B_3KdmzXMGbffRYfcTp7Lg7lN4mFXIBjXr9QNRkIqH4Z8EtYLFB5xDF77jpVY8kynII4li3Efih4Ll4W_QwNfkQjj1flN0_paNhYIxx2ZgS6iG5KqzjfL9iQHyNGppPg/s320/Screen+shot+2013-02-12+at+5.01.39+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This is the accompanying photo with Kate Dalley's<br />article: a sexual identity merit badge. Sexual identity<br />means the gender a person identifies with. Dalley<br />actually doesn't talk about this at all. Hate mail to<br />Matty Jacobson can be posted in the comments section<br />below.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/" target="_blank">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://activism.skewedreview.com/" target="_blank">ACTIVISM</a><br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-open-letter-to-kate-dalley-and-her.html" data-via="TheDiscoUnicorn">Tweet</a>
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All three rings of the gay rights circus are active right
now, and it certainly is the most grating show on earth. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If you haven’t read Feb. 9 article, <a href="http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2013/02/09/dalley-perspectives-the-sexual-identity-merit-badge/" target="_blank">“Perspectives: TheSexual Identity Merit Badge,”</a> by Kate Dalley, published on StGeorgeUtah.com,
then maybe you should take a minute and read it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If you can’t see how bigoted this article is, then I’m
afraid you’ve fallen into the same delusion that Dalley has: that this opinion
piece is a fair representation of her side of the argument. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But in all actuality, it’s only telling us that being
“openly gay” means that you fully intend to disclose graphic sexual information
to boys. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not here to tell you The Boy Scouts of America should
allow openly gay people to join the organization. I don’t really understand why
any self-respecting person who just <i>happens</i>
to be gay would want to join an organization that is willing to deny them
membership for that one aspect alone. But, like I said, the whole Boy Scout
issue is completely beside the point here. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Whether intentional or not, Dalley is portraying herself as
a pervert who can only think of one thing: gay sex. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When I first started The Skewed Review back in 2009, my goal
was to have a political column that focused on headlines—but in a sarcastic and
entertaining way. Of course, I didn’t fully understand how poorly sarcasm is
conveyed through print, and politics are about as entertaining as watching
CSPAN “Clockwork Orange” style. Still, I’m able to crank out some pretty good
puns every now and then, and as long as post mug shots of myself looking
perturbed, then at least half my audience gets my sardonic attitude.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But what started as a political focus grew to cover a wide
variety of topics. From movies to morons, The Skewed Review is able to touch on
just about every subject. But one thing that’s really bloomed like a rainbow
rose growing in a glitter and John Waters DVD mulch is my activism. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But in all my activism tantrums, I’ve never once argued that
gay people should be allowed to run up to whomever they please and start
spouting off about their sex lives. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, never mind that Dalley is uneducated; she doesn’t even
know the difference between sexual orientation and sexual identity (she refers
to sexual identity as a “sexual preference”) and never mind her inability to
recognize her own redundancies (she talks about granting membership to “‘openly
gay’ homosexuals”); I want to bring to your attention her blatant
self-contradictions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She goes so far in her argument as to say: “Am I ‘openly
Mormon,’ or ‘openly heterosexual?’ No.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Actually, Ms. Dalley is both of those things. First and
foremost, she just announced them both in her article. That, my loyal readers,
is the definition of being openly <i>anything</i>.
I’m guessing she goes to church and is seen by hundreds of other congregants.
That’s openly Mormon. And in her mini-bio at the end of her article, it clearly
states she’s married and a mother of five children. That’s openly heterosexual.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dalley’s hypocrisy is astounding. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But her biggest fallacy is that she’s a namby-pamby,
no-spine writer who is too afraid to argue what she wants to argue. Her article
reeks of disgust toward gay people, but she skirts that issue under the guise
of “I’m not a fan of bullying.” She’s clearly repulsed by gay people, but she’s
too much of sissy to admit it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She tells her readers that it’s fine to be gay—just don’t
talk about it. You know, because if she
were to talk about her husband and kids, that’s just fine. But if I were to
talk about my husband, that’s crossing a line. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And under it all, I think Dalley just can’t get gay sex out
of her mind. To quote her, “As
for openly-gay scout leaders professing their attitude of acceptance to young
boys, sex should never be a discussion that they have with their scouts. Ever.
It is inappropriate, just as I do not want a promiscuous male heterosexual
glamorizing or justifying his sexual conquests either.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Wow. She sure jumped from point A to point XXX in a matter of seconds.</div>
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Who said being gay meant talking about sex to young boys? Dalley is basically calling all gay men pedophiles. She thinks that
being gay means telling everyone around you how you have gay sex. This is a simplistic mindset, a fairy tale if you will, that Dalley has conjured up in her own closed little mind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m sorry, Mrs. Dalley, but you are a pervert. I have never
seen a married heterosexual couple holding hands and said, “Good God. Those two people are having
sex.” So forgive me for thinking you're the odd one because you do exactly that when you see (or think about) a homosexual couple holding hands. And, oddly enough, I’ve never been afraid for my nieces and nephews when
we invite the straight folk over. I’ve never thought, “Oh lord, those two
straight people are going to start telling my 7-year-old niece how they have
sex.” So again, forgive me when I think you are the pervert because you think that's No. 1 on a homosexual couple's agenda.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Guess what? My partner and I don’t do that stuff. Do
my nieces and nephews know I have a partner who happens to be a man? Yes, they
do. But do I sit down and tell them how sex with another man works? No! I would
never do that! And neither would any other upstanding gay person!<o:p></o:p></div>
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The fact that you think we all want to have conversations
about sex with young boys tells me there’s something wrong with <i>you.</i> Not <i>us. </i></div>
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Are there sick people out there? Yes. But are they all gay? <i style="font-weight: bold;">NO.</i> I'm not a sick person, my husband is not a sick person, and all our gay friends are not sick people. You, on the other hand, who thinks that being gay means "professing" your gayness to little children, gives me pause. I just have a sneaking suspicion the only thing you, Mrs. Dalley, can think about when you hear "gay" is a couple of naked guys going at in bed with whips and chains and cameras rolling. Disgusting.</div>
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Let the Boy Scouts of America deny access to gay people.
That’s fine with me. And argue your homophobic point of view. That’s
also fine with me. Just don’t pretend to be to be something you’re not—an understanding and loving human being. And we, as a collective group of
normal humans who just <i>happen</i> to be
gay will all be what we are—decent, loving, kind, accepting humans who are
simply tired of people like <b><i>YOU</i><u> </u></b>labeling us as sex-crazed pedophiles. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
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Before the
Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers convene in New Orleans on Sunday for
Super Bowl XLVII, let’s take a moment to think back on the last time the Super
Bowl took place in New Orleans.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The year was
2002 — a time when I was 14 years old, and I was doing 14-year-old things. Tom
Brady and the miracle New England Patriots entered the Louisiana Superdome
looking to win what would be the first of three Super Bowls. Kurt Warner and
the St. Louis Rams came in as the ultimate powerhouse of Stay Puft Marshmallow
Man proportions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Rams had
won the Super Bowl in 2000, and Brady was the Cinderella story of the year.
Starting Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe got hurt earlier in the year, and
Brady became the starter. No one expected the Patriots to make the playoffs
that year under Bledsoe, let alone Brady. Yet, here were the Patriots in the
Super Bowl.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After a
hard-fought battle, it ended with a game-winning field goal from Patriots
kicker Adam Vinatieri — launching the start of the Patriots dynasty.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fast-forward
11 years, and the Super Bowl once again will take place in New Orleans. In
addition to that, the Patriots dynasty that started in that city 11 years ago
seems to essentially be finished with their recent loss to the Ravens in the
AFC Championship game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Ravens
are led by quarterback Joe Flacco, who’s career seems to be like Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s recent film “The Last Stand.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So often
fans and analysts rip Flacco during the regular season, giving many to question
whether he’s a legitimate franchise quarterback. Yet Flacco has never missed
the playoffs in his five seasons in the league, and has played in the AFC
Championship game three times — with of course the most recent being a win over
the Patriots to make it to the Super Bowl.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Much like
“The Last Stand,” getting through the first hour and 20 minutes is well worth
it to see the awesome shootout at the end. Flacco is fun to watch in the
playoffs, and this year in particular he’s having a 2011-Dirk-Nowitzki-type
postseason, where he just seems destined for greatness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However,
Flacco’s great postseason is being ruined by the fake holiness of The Rev. Ray
Lewis. The over/under of how many times Lewis mentions God is his post-game
press conference if the Ravens win was set at 3. Thank goodness this will be
Lewis’ last game before retirement because I can’t take another year of Ray
Lewis features on SportsCenter about his greatness. He’s a phony, and I’m sick
of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On the
49ers’ side, it’s all about the defense. Navarro Bowman, Patrick Willis, Justin
Smith and Aldon Smith will be the key in trying to stop Flacco’s destiny.
Ravens’ running back Ray Rice will not be able to run very well against this
powerful 49er defense, so it’s up to Flacco to throw against it. And anybody
who watched the first half of the 49ers/Falcons NFC Championship game should
know that this 49er defense is a little shaky when teams want to throw the
football. It’s only when the Falcons decided to get conservative and try to run
the clock out that the 49ers made their comeback and won the game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If Flacco
has the kind of game he had against the Denver Broncos a few weeks ago in the
divisional round of the playoffs, things could get hairy for the 49ers
defensive backs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now on to my
favorite part of this year’s Super Bowl, and that’s 49ers quarterback Colin
Kaepernick, a.k.a. Sleeves (because of his awesome tattoos), a.k.a. Kaeptain
America. He took over in the middle of the season because starting quarterback
Alex Smith missed time with a concussion. Once Kaepernick stepped in, it was
his show from then on (reminiscent to the Tom Brady story in the 2001-2002
football season).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kaepernick’s
breakout game came against the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football when he
torched them through the air and with his speed on the ground. This dual-threat
quarterback has the chance to be the second dual-threat quarterback to win a
Super Bowl. Seriously. We’ve been talking about these guys for years — guys
like Michael Vick, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, and all the way back to
Randall Cunningham. However, the success rate of this type of quarterback
winning a championship is slim to none.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The last one
(and only one) to win a championship was Steve Young. And of course he played
for the 49ers. Perhaps there’s something in the water in San Francisco that
gives running quarterbacks the ability to throw the ball well and win
championships. Perhaps Barry Bonds’ steroid needles are in the Frisco water.
Who knows?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Finally, the
most talked about portion of this year’s Super Bowl has been about the two
brothers competing against one another as head coaches — John and Jim Harbaugh.
John, the coach of the Ravens, and Jim, the coach of the 49ers, are brothers
separated by just 15 months. I have two brothers (twins), who are 15 months
younger than I am, and then I have another brother who is three and a half
years younger than I am. We were competitive growing up, and I usually made it
a point when competing to not only beat them at stuff, but also make them look
silly. And if I knew I couldn’t beat them at something, then I refused to
compete against them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don’t
underestimate the brother factor here. They love each other dearly, but as an
older brother I have to give the edge to older brother John and the Ravens.
There’s no way in hell I’d let any of my younger brothers beat me in the most
watched event event in the history of television.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Prediction
Ravens (+3.5) over 49ers. Vegas is giving the Ravens 3 1/2 points, so I’d take
the points with Flacco guiding the Ravens’ offense. And the 49ers’ kicking woes
with David Akers make any game-winning field goals in doubt. Throw in the
“Screw you, little brother, this is mine” effect, and it’s Ravens all the way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<br />
<div class="fb-comments" data-width="470" data-num-posts="2" data-colorscheme="light"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-31112935290910391922012-12-07T06:09:00.002-07:002012-12-07T06:12:57.062-07:00From Matty to the Debating 'Dixie' Masses<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are at a crossroads at Dixie State College, St. George
and the entire state of Utah.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The debate over “Dixie” is no longer a local one; the name
change has made national headlines. The discussion is continuing and changes
are being made, one of which comes in the very physical form of the Confederate
statue’s removal from campus. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As we move forward toward becoming a university, whether or
not the name changes, we must behave as students and professors of higher
education and civil adult alumni of a college with 100 years of heritage.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The debate is becoming less of a debate and more of a
childish tantrum on both sides. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
If we believe change is necessary in order to remain a respected institution,
we should not be demeaned and accused of having nothing better to do than
destroy tradition. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if we believe “Dixie” is indicative to St. George life
and holds no synonymous value to the confederate south, then we should not be
called bigots and racists. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This war is becoming less and less civil as the days go on.
We are all adults and we should have one thing in mind only: the successful
educations the college offers to students. Whether or not that includes the
term “Dixie” should be entirely beside the point. If we must debate, let’s
debate amicably and leave the name-calling to the kindergartners and the
politicians.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s stop throwing around ultimatums and start behaving
like the collegiate scholars we aspire to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<br />
<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/12/from-matty-to-debating-dixie-masses.html" data-width="600" data-num-posts="20"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-74830891242462445042012-11-15T07:35:00.003-07:002012-11-15T09:13:28.539-07:00Top 10 Podcasts To Keep You Warm During Winter Months - by Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34u7SqWlFuk7OTvtMe2mZvT9y-vqlrWrNVy4CJfjdSbKmndvCOeTvZYoVe-ag22eMXQ3wwwylIV3KQRc8IXgkMZiTYC79Zc1olHLPl0ShHozZbV1eRGEPkwPrXz7w-qG_aPpjaiXuRbI/s1600/Photo+on+2012-11-15+at+04.31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34u7SqWlFuk7OTvtMe2mZvT9y-vqlrWrNVy4CJfjdSbKmndvCOeTvZYoVe-ag22eMXQ3wwwylIV3KQRc8IXgkMZiTYC79Zc1olHLPl0ShHozZbV1eRGEPkwPrXz7w-qG_aPpjaiXuRbI/s320/Photo+on+2012-11-15+at+04.31.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Matty Jacobson edits and contributes to The Skewed Review.<br />Your sporadic dose of Skew comes directly from Matty's<br />kitchen and straight to your face holes. </b></i></td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
Summer really is the best time for podcasts; there's nothing new on TV, the kids are all out of school so you can't really go out in public without wanting to beat the crap out of them, and you have to have something to listen to while lazily basking in the sun in order to get that perfect cancer-colored carmel that cubes your sexiness.<br />
<br />
But summer's been over for quite some time now, and long periods of alone time are probably close to non-existent for most of us. But that hasn't stopped me from compiling the Top 10 Podcasts To Keep You Warm During Winter Months.<br />
<br />
If you're new to The Skewed Review, then I'll set aside my judgment for a moment and direct you to the top 10 most-read articles on the left. This summer, I compiled the <a href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/07/top-10-podcasts-to-keep-you-sane-during.html" target="_blank">Top 10 Podcasts To Keep You Sane During Rerun Season</a>. Well, that article led to an onslaught of podcast suggestions. So luckily for you, I've screened what can only be described as a buttload of podcasts, and I've found a few I'm sure you'll like.<br />
<br />
Please note a couple of these podcasts also appeared on the last top 10 list. That's because they remain awesome. Also take note that, even though they don't appear on this list, all the podcasts on the summer list are still awesome and I continue to listen to each one religiously.<br />
<br />
Please download a few of each of these. They're entertaining, educational, ridiculous and incoherent. I know, I know. Heaven, right? These are available on iTunes, or you can click the links I've provided. So, without further adieu (wait, am I using the correct word? "Further goodbye?" Hmm. Damn the French), here are The Top 10 Podcasts To Keep You Warm During Winter Months (in no particular order):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOFjUyKke1o6wuN0jUuRVEFnc2J4LpfWsWCOPfw8uImcW_7KVcBBRQp6w_CPZzW1lO20B1trp7IzObnHzRuClamYkCtUe78U5hEP6GkgklHSpPIktm6-fSmY3j4Ba-EqD6h7eNbfCiEhE/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+4.50.09+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOFjUyKke1o6wuN0jUuRVEFnc2J4LpfWsWCOPfw8uImcW_7KVcBBRQp6w_CPZzW1lO20B1trp7IzObnHzRuClamYkCtUe78U5hEP6GkgklHSpPIktm6-fSmY3j4Ba-EqD6h7eNbfCiEhE/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+4.50.09+AM.png" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.ragtimepodcast.com/" target="_blank">10 - Ragtime Podcast</a><br />
<br />
The title says it all for this one. Suds and Schwood watch the latest movies and then tell us everything that's wrong with them. Sometimes I agree with their opinions, and sometimes I'm sure they're smoking something. But they're entertaining 100 percent of the time. The best part is they rag on each other for liking movies. I swear they're a beer away from a fist fight during every episode. Be warned, though, make sure to watch the movies before listening. There are spoilers in every episode. But hey, on the plus side, if there's a movie you want to lie about seeing, then you can just listen to Ragtime and then repeat what you've heard to all your petty friends who apparently judge you on if you've seen a movie or not.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHxJn5b5m_68KIKqWAksDQclyKoQIsiGLbl7so94ne9mc0557QR4B69_NPpYze5tM2xyUxnvjR6V5Y0dyGimIBemzPNL6l8_2YH5fEferQjH0T13akEgDUkm5-iXwXHaLpyiKtCt1WQ0/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+7.12.55+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHxJn5b5m_68KIKqWAksDQclyKoQIsiGLbl7so94ne9mc0557QR4B69_NPpYze5tM2xyUxnvjR6V5Y0dyGimIBemzPNL6l8_2YH5fEferQjH0T13akEgDUkm5-iXwXHaLpyiKtCt1WQ0/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+7.12.55+AM.png" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.earwolf.com/show/comedy-bang-bang/" target="_blank">9 - Comedy Bang! Bang!</a><br />
<br />
The best thing about Comedy Bang! Bang! is the characters. I love this show because it's disguised as a talk show, but it's really improv candy for your eardrums. Host Scott Aukerman usually speaks with a well-known guest each week like Amy Poehler or Jon Hamm. He also has other guests like my favorites, craft services coordinator Fabrice Fabrice, and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (both of which are characters performed by Nick Kroll and Paul F. Tompkins, respectively). One thing is for certain: You'll never play "Would You Rather" the same way again once you've listened to a few episodes of this podcast.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC5qxoNwifYkjsusFsX76aaaGvRj7B7WDtKGMaPWkbWOUKbgXwuXCfMz1mwbvglYtfb4HsvZnEH1Txun7ZY3ym8Kmx5sXXAYfBb2W6fXTFWGyKN3vXc89iAF8UIBjN1WG9xlJ5JQe256Q/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+7.13.39+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC5qxoNwifYkjsusFsX76aaaGvRj7B7WDtKGMaPWkbWOUKbgXwuXCfMz1mwbvglYtfb4HsvZnEH1Txun7ZY3ym8Kmx5sXXAYfBb2W6fXTFWGyKN3vXc89iAF8UIBjN1WG9xlJ5JQe256Q/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+7.13.39+AM.png" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.professorblastoff.com/" target="_blank">8 - Professor Blastoff</a><br />
<br />
As a loyal "Blastronaut," it shouldn't be a surprise that I've included Professor Blastoff again. But I'll be damned if this isn't the funniest podcast that attempts to teach us something with every episode. Whether or not I actually learn anything new is usually beside the point. I look forward each week to Tig Notaro's stories of survival, David Huntsberger's attempts at keeping each episode on track, and Kyle Dunnigan's myriad comments/impressions/embarrassing stories. And for a special treat, you should download episode 74 where Lead Researcher and fellow Mormon (although, he seems to be the active kind) Aaron Burrell enlightens us with the philosophical aspects of "Star Trek."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZlC_jQnV1w5zBjtut_h4t1JgJdSYBaAfBjFPg3VgJq5q9tTUjhQw0ooPiK6Q0d4Bq1xCf20c77EyhBKqp-lkPaA0YN1dZyz4ImxqA9GFQTgxzBv5CICosJtjqVxSAh7udnhum1VS-w2c/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+7.14.26+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZlC_jQnV1w5zBjtut_h4t1JgJdSYBaAfBjFPg3VgJq5q9tTUjhQw0ooPiK6Q0d4Bq1xCf20c77EyhBKqp-lkPaA0YN1dZyz4ImxqA9GFQTgxzBv5CICosJtjqVxSAh7udnhum1VS-w2c/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-15+at+7.14.26+AM.png" /></a></div>
<a href="http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/" target="_blank">7 - The Dead Authors Podcast</a><br />
<br />
This podcast is not at all as depressing as the title leads you to believe it is. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Paul F. Tompkins stars as a time-travelling H.G. Wells who brings dead authors from their time to a stage in front of a live audience. He then proceeds to ask authors about their inspirations, their struggles, their loves, their lives, their livings, and everything in between. The most recent episode, featuring Laraine Newman as Mary Shelly, is a particular gem, but my all-time favorite thus far is the episode where Wells brings H.P. Lovecraft and Friedrich Nietzsche to the 21st century. I could give or take Lovecraft, but Nietzsche had me close to peeing my undies. This is some funny stuff.<br />
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<a href="http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/hsw-shows/stuff-you-should-know-podcast.htm" target="_blank">6 - Stuff You Should Know</a><br />
<br />
I've noticed hosts Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark have begun reminding listeners that they're not experts on all the topics they discuss. Apparently people have been writing to these fine gentlemen to scold them on topics when they're not delved into on a collegiate level. Well, considering this podcast covers topics ranging from raining frogs to fractals, you'd think the general audience would know that these guys don't hold masters degrees on everything they talk about. So keep that in mind as you listen. The episodes will enlighten you on things you most likely haven't thought twice about, and some episodes may even spark a desire to research a topic even further. Learning is almost as fun as hardcore drugs. Or so I've heard.<br />
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<a href="http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/hsw-shows/stuff-you-missed-in-history-class-podcast.htm" target="_blank">5 - Stuff You Missed in History Class</a><br />
<br />
The best part about Stuff You Missed in History Class is that you walk away from your iPod a little smarter than you were. Hosts Deblina and Sarah bring a little history lesson to us with each episode. And unlike high school, we're not subjected to tests afterward. Some of the more thrilling subjects have included the true story behind Lizzy Borden, the tale of my favorite New Orleans house: The LaLaurie Mansion, and a little lesson on the one and only Emperor of the United States. The best part about this podcast is that you'll find out interesting tidbits you've never really heard before. For instance, did you know Professor Moriarty of "Sherlock Holmes" fame was based on a real person?<br />
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<a href="http://www.geekshowpodcast.com/" target="_blank">4 - Geekshow Podcast</a><br />
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My affection for Geekshow runs deep. I think this is the only podcast I've continued listening to that's just a bunch of guys talking about random things. All my other podcast picks focus on specific topics like education or movies, or they have some sort of scripted or improv comedy aspect to them. I've listened to many suggested podcasts where a panel of people sit and chat, but I've ended up unsubscribing after just a few episodes. But, for some reason, Geekshow is the one and only in this specific genre of podcast style that's worthy of staying on my list. I think it might be because of the copious amounts of alcohol involved. Who knows. Just subscribe to it already.<br />
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<a href="http://thrillingadventurehour.com/" target="_blank">3 - The Thrilling Adventure Hour</a><br />
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Remember all those times you sat and thought, "Gee, why don't they do old-timey radio productions like 'The Shadow' and 'The Green Hornet' anymore?" No? Well, I never did, either. So it was a complete surprise to me when I realized I'd been living without something awesome for all this time. The Thrilling Adventure Hour is a collection of minishows like "Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars" and "Beyond Belief." They're read from scripts in front of a live audience, and they're funny as hell. By the way, who coined the phrase "funny as hell?" I mean, I've never been there, but from what I've heard it's actually sort of the opposite of hilarious. Ok, so Thrilling Adventure Hour is not so much "funny as hell" as it is "funny as cats in cowboy costumes riding Shetland ponies." Yeah, that sounds about right.<br />
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<a href="http://www.gosuperego.com/" target="_blank">2 - Superego</a><br />
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Superego is definitely an acquired taste. Before you listen, you'll need to know a couple of things: First, almost all the segments you'll hear feature reoccurring characters. Second, the segments are comedic skits that are improvised. They're bizarre and usually make little-to-no sense at all. But they're funny. Don't go into this one expecting something cohesive or coherent. You won't find it here. I'm not advocating drug use, but I'll bet however much the bill collector says I owe on the next call I receive that this podcast would be hilarious when paired with marijuana.<br />
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<a href="http://pft.libsyn.com/" target="_blank">1 - The Pod F. Tompkast</a><br />
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Here's the dumb thing about being a fan of someone: If you recommend multiple outlets for that person's work, then people start to think you're a stalker. Well, I'm not a stalker, but I did only recently discover how hilarious Paul F. Tompkins is. I didn't mention it before, but he's also featured in the Superego and Thrilling Adventure Hour podcasts. This particular podcast features Mr. Tompkins waxing intellectual to live (at the time of recording) music provided by Eban Schletter. The podcast also features clips from Tompkins' live shows, some scripted hilarity featuring the many voices of Paul, and interviews with comedians. The only problem with this show is it has no scheduled release date, so you may get one every three months, or you may get five in a week's time. But hey, it's a good surprise when it pops up!<br />
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So now that I've given you some new suggestions, why not send a few more my way? Tweet me your favorite podcasts to <a href="http://www.twitter.com/theskewedreview" target="_blank">@TheSkewedReview</a> or let's discuss it on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/theskewedreview" target="_blank">The Skewed Review's Facebook page.</a>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-48726956562249422342012-11-15T03:16:00.000-07:002012-11-15T03:40:32.356-07:00Flip Flops Aren't Just Footwear - by Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i>Matty Jacobson edits and contributes to<br />The Skewed Review. He also made this mask,<br />which has absolutely nothing to do with this article.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://college.skewedreview.com/">COLLEGE LIFE</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Some people may call it “flip-flopping,” but I’d like to think of it more as intelligent people making intelligent decisions after getting additional information.</span><br />
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Of course, the word “intelligent” is entirely subjective, but that’s a whole different article in itself.</div>
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Don’t worry; I’m not about to go on some rant about the election. Lord knows we’ve all had enough of that nonsense. I’d like to focus a little more on Dixie State College's campus—specifically that name.</div>
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When I first enrolled at DSC back in the fall of 2001 (when most of the senior class with whom I hobnob were 11 years old), our school color was just red, our mascot was still The Rebel, the community and the college were still BFFs, and we could all fly freely across the country without having our junk displayed on X-ray machines at every airport terminal.</div>
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But just a month into the semester, something tragic happened to our entire nation. Suddenly it wasn’t so PC to be called “The Rebels,” and Dixie State College spun into an identity crisis that continues to this day.</div>
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I myself felt disenfranchised when the school mascot became The Redhawks, and pictures of Foghorn Leghorn started popping up all around campus. I certainly didn’t see any reason to tread on tradition and chuck our beloved Rebel out the window like so many empty bags of crack on Charleston Blvd. in Las Vegas.</div>
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I thought the attempt to turn 180 degrees away from the so-called Confederacy tie was too over-the-top. Not only did we get rid of our mascot, but we also added a couple of colors to our palette. Sure, we kept the red, but we added white and blue just to drive the point home that Dixie State College was an all-American, patriotic institution.</div>
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I think if the higher-ups had it their way, the college would abolish all sports except Baseball and <i>American</i> football, and the food services on campus would be limited to nothing more than hamburgers and apple pie.</div>
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The second time we decided to change our identity, I was a little more jaded. I wasn’t really P.O.’d at the change from Redhawks to Red Storm; I was more annoyed that we apparently had a board of trustees and an athletic department that seemed to change their minds more than an attention deficit afflicted bride with multiple personality disorder.</div>
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But what really got my goose in a girdle the second time around was the college pretended it was going to let the students have a say in the matter. We were given the option to choose a new mascot and vote on the finalists.</div>
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But what happened instead was the athletic department already had the new mascot picked out. They just wanted to give the illusion that the student body picked a bull in a tornado of all things because, you know, that's totally not stupid. </div>
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There was more ceremonial bull that year than you'd find in all of India.</div>
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So, after all the hullabaloo, we find ourselves in the same situation as we move on to university status. When I heard there’d be forums and votes and input on our new name, I rolled my eyes and said to the nearest person: “Oh, they’ll be getting our input, huh? Just like they got our input on that stupid bull that nobody wanted?”</div>
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I cemented my reputation as the weird kid when the stranger I was standing next to didn’t respond. But I digress.</div>
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I was despondent to say the least. What ever happened to our good old Dixie? Was our name change going to be rigged like the mascot was? Are the board of trustees sitting behind closed doors right now, toasting to their success and laughing at all of us? I can just hear them now: "The fools! They actually think they have a say! Little do they know that next year they'll all be attending Moroni University!" </div>
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Please note that I have no real evidence of Big Dee having been chosen prior to the students’ voting on it. But, like those pesky second shooters on the grassy knoll, this is one conspiracy I'm certain exists.</div>
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Needless to say, I feel strongly about “Dixie.” And no, it’s not because of anything to do with slavery or secession. I’m a Dixie boy through and through. My parents both graduated from Dixie, and my grandfather was once the head of the English department. I say keep “Dixie!”</div>
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Well, I said it, anyway. But I’ve actually changed my mind on that one. I took a step back and wondered how I would feel if, say, this college was called “Faggot University.”</div>
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No, it doesn’t have anything to do with the gay slur. It’s called that because the pioneers who came to southern Utah were bound together—strong like a bundle of sticks.</div>
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Or what if we were attending “Coon State?” You know, because Jacob Hamblin’s favorite animal was a raccoon. I think.</div>
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Both those justifications are as valid, if not more so, than saying “Dixie” should remain in the title of our school because the pioneers attempted to grow cotton in the 19<sup>th</sup> century.</div>
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My one review for this article is five out of five Sugarloaves forever looking down upon St. George for time and all eternity to remind us of where we came from. This review is for everyone. We don’t need to forget our past. We just need to move on.</div>
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And for anyone who doesn't know what a Sugarloaf is, then you need to brush up on your Dixie knowledge. </div>
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I say change is good. We are intelligent people, and we should behave as such. Is it more important for us to continue being “Dixie” because it happens to be painted on a sedimentary rock deposit on the north rim of the valley? Or is it more important to put history in the history books and move forward as an all-inclusive institution?</div>
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Join me, and be a flip-flopper. And while you're at it, let's talk about it on <a data-mce-href="http://www.facebook.com/theskewedreview" href="http://www.facebook.com/theskewedreview">The Skewed Review's Facebook page</a>, or tweet me <a data-mce-href="http://www.twitter.com/theskewedreview" href="http://www.twitter.com/theskewedreview">@TheSkewedReview.</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://entertainment.skewedreview.com/">ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
news that Disney had purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas was alarming to so
many people, including Mark Hamill (the original Luke Skywalker).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
Disney didn’t even tease us. “Star Wars Episode VII” is going to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So
much continual speculation will happen between now and May 2015, but I’d still
like to add in my own speculation and desires for the new trilogy. After all,
I’ve been watching the movies, playing the video games and reading the books
since I was a kid, so this universe is special to me as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
immediate speculation is in regard to the movie’s plot and which characters
will take part. There are the Big Four characters who are the only ones that
really matter when it comes to the casting: Han Solo, Princess Leia, Lando
Calrissian and, of course, Luke Skywalker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
have the storyline in mind that I hope they go with (though it’s unlikely the
writers will choose the one I’m thinking), but the casting of these four
characters matters a little bit more. I went in-depth with two friends on the
potential actors, and after our deliberations here is my fantasy cast:</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Han
Solo: Gerard Butler</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Gerard_Butler_(Berlin_Film_Festival_2011).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Gerard_Butler_(Berlin_Film_Festival_2011).jpg" width="132" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">ipernity.com</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Wikimedia Commons</span></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">
</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The
majority of the film’s popularity will hinge on the choice of which actor will
play Han Solo. Without a doubt Han is the most popular character from the
original trilogy, and having to fill Harrison Ford’s shoes will be a daunting
task.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
scurried through American actors who could play this role with one friend, and
we came up with Bradley Cooper and Ryan Reynolds, both risky picks. But then I
thought, what actor embodies a lot of what Harrison Ford was during the Han
Solo and Indiana Jones days? That’s when I went to Sam Worthington from “Clash
of the Titans.” Then another friend said, “If we’re going to go with a
non-American, Gerard Butler has more panache than Sam Worthington.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indeed
he’s right about that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Butler
has the swagger and comedic timing to be Han Solo. He kind of already looks
like a scruffy-looking nerfherder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Princess
Leia: Maggie Gyllenhaal</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Maggie_Gyllenhaal_@_2010_Academy_Awards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Maggie_Gyllenhaal_@_2010_Academy_Awards.jpg" width="128" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Michael Connors<br />Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As
I was surfing the Internet to hear more buzz and see others’ ideas for casting
(most of which are not realistic casts and copy “The Avengers” cast) I saw that
I wasn’t alone in this idea. It made me feel like my choice was credible to
bring in the Rachel Dawes of “The Dark Knight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All
of my friends did not like Gyllenhaal as the replacement for Katie Holmes in
“The Dark Knight,” and sometimes maybe I didn’t either. Perhaps it’s because
Gyllenhaal just isn’t as hot as Holmes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Because
of that I think we sometimes forget that Gyllenhaal’s Rachel Dawes was much
more authoritative and believable as a lawyer than Holmes’ Rachel Dawes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gyllenhaal
has the look and personality to fit Princess Leia perfectly. She’s courageous,
attractive (not jaw-dropping hot), and I can see her wearing Leia’s hair style
from “Empire Strikes Back.” That movie is where you actually see Leia
commanding troops, so that’s the hairstyle I envision Leia wearing when
establishing the New Republic in episodes VII, VIII and IX.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Lando
Calrissian: Donald Faison</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Donald_Faison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Donald_Faison.jpg" width="136" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">lukeford.net<br />Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
probably got a little ridiculous with this pick, but after hearing Faison say
on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” that his dream role would be to play Lando
Calrissian in a “Star Wars” origin story, I had to make the pick. Plus, how can
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BXEvmWbeC8">this clip from “Scrubs”</a> not make convince you? </span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Faison will have to “be smooth,” but to see him playing his
dream role of Lando Calrissian would make me happy. I know he would love the
role so much that he would dive into it and be Lando.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Luke
Skywalker: Leonardo DiCaprio</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/LeonardoDiCaprioNov08.jpg/387px-LeonardoDiCaprioNov08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/LeonardoDiCaprioNov08.jpg/387px-LeonardoDiCaprioNov08.jpg" width="128" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Colin Chou<br />Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
took a lot of heat from my friends for this pick, but I feel like there’s
something here. It’s a role that’s totally different than anything Leo has done
before, and the risk is that all anyone will see is the guy from “Titanic,” but
to be Luke Skywalker to wrap his rather successful career would be interesting
to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Leo
speaks well, he’s done super-dramatic roles and no one hates watching him.
That’s the last thing Leo needs to do in his career is go from “Nobody hates
me” to “Everyone loves me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
space opera (a genre within the science fiction genre) is something that Leo
has never tried, and if he were to put on the all-black jump suit that Luke
Skywalker wears in “Return of the Jedi” while wielding the classic green
lightsaber, he would become loved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Plus,
if Disney goes with the storyline from the books based five years after “Return
of the Jedi,” Luke Skywalker has a lightsaber duel with a clone of himself. How
awesome would it be to see Leonardo DiCaprio battling Leonardo DiCaprio with
lightsabers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I
don’t live under some guise where I believe this cast is actually possible. I
don’t know the connections of Hollywood and who likes working with whom. But
this cast is realistic, and the actors I chose fit the classic roles so well.
“The Avengers 2” is set for a May 2015 release, and now we have the next “Star
Wars” to look forward to. Unbelievable.</span></div>
<br />
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I've heard it can take a lifetime to figure out what occupation would perfectly suit you. Well, it's taken me less than three years to find out exactly what I <i>don't</i> want to do.<br />
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When I signed on to be a writer for our college newspaper in 2008, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed non-traditional student with a backpack stuffed with fresh life views and glitter, and pockets filled with hope, wonder and stardust.<br />
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So basically I was a 27-year-old My Little Pony.<br />
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Journalism, as I knew it then, was an outlet for creative storytellers like myself to relay the tales of astonishing events and perplexing people. I was so familiar with Vogue and Rolling Stone. I knew the authors of these captivating articles must love their jobs; they get to travel, they get to meet interesting people, and they get paid to write it all down for others to enjoy.<br />
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But little did I know that journalism is entirely founded upon a "break, then remake" principle. The first article I wrote for Dixie State College's Dixie Sun was hacked to pieces by the editors with little more than a huff and a demand for a revised version of my once beautiful piece of art. I distinctly remember writing the article and thinking to myself that the imagery I'd painted with my words, the way in which I phrased my questions, and the presentation of the entire package made what would have otherwise been an utterly bland bowl of cold porridge a 17-course gourmet tasting dinner.<br />
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But embellishments, especially any meant to make reading a news article even remotely pleasant, are highly frowned upon, apparently. I was told to trash the gourmet meal and scrounge up my most mediocre version of gruel.<br />
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And since then? Well, I've become so ingrained with the formulaic, expressionless form of so-called news writing that I sometimes fear my creative tank is just a tick or two above E. But that's how they want it.<br />
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After my first article was butchered, I remember thinking (and even exclaiming aloud in a fit of passion), "No wonder the newspaper industry is dying!"<br />
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Almost all creativity housed within me has since been extracted and discarded, and the empty shell that was once full of music, art, poetry, fashion and culture was then refilled with word counts, deadlines, grammatical purism, and Associated Press rules.<br />
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There are myriad things I'd rather be doing. I want to sketch, draw, color and paint. I want to play music, sing, act and dance. I want to write poetry and stories and read them aloud. I want to leave this life of drudgery behind.<br />
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So the question still remains: Why would I continue doing something I've come to loathe so much?<br />
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It's such a conundrum, and also a tragedy, because I've essentially sacrificed my creativity for a chance to climb the editorial ladder. After just one semester on staff, I was offered the position of arts & entertainment editor. It was the proverbial carrot dangling in front of me, and wouldn't you know it? I was the perfect horse's ass. I mean, how awesome would it be to be the <i>editor</i> of arts & entertainment? What a title!<br />
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Yes, I was drawn by the small amount of authority it would give me. I won't lie. That editor title was like the power of Greyskull. It turned my meager prince Adam into the mighty He-Man and stuck a giant tiger named Battlecat between my legs.<br />
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Well, I already had that second part taken care of. But I digress.<br />
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The glory of my editorship was short-lived. It turned out to be little more than an arranger of articles whose job it was to keep track of ten other people and do just as much additional research each week.<br />
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Was I tricked into taking a position that I now know was only vacant because the amount of time needed to fulfill the duties takes up double the amount of time regular schoolwork does? Maybe last year I would have called it a conspiracy theory, but now I think it was a bit premeditated--especially considering the offer came along with a note of encouragement that I'm perfect Editor-in-Chief material.<br />
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So, like the good little pet I apparently am, I stayed on, climbing the ranks. And here I am today: the Editor-in-Chief. And what do I have to show for it? Well, a load of student debt that'll take me triple the amount of years to pay off as it did to incur, for one thing. I also get my very own jail cell, which happens to have a computer in it. And every day I get to edit other people's work and do to them what was done to me. I don't even get a day off of cutting down the staffers' work and spirit. I pare away the creativity of others and assure that our readers get nothing less than the equivalent of something even David Copperfield wouldn't want if offered seconds.<br />
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And no, I'm not talking about the magician. Unfortunately, I've put myself in a position where I need to explain those sorts of things. After all, I'm only allowed to write for the lowest reading level one can get away with while attending college. And from what I've seen, I'd say that's around fourth or fifth grade.<br />
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So why stay? Well, I have committed myself. One thing I've come to loathe during my time as an ignored journalist is a quitter. I despise writers who quit. I despise sources who cancel. I despise readers whose attention span doesn't extend beyond a paragraph or two if I'm writing about anything other than Britney Spears' vagina.<br />
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At this point in this article, I can only assume I've managed to shake off those readers with more important things to do, like watch "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," I guess. Hopefully I'm with like-minded company by now.<br />
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I've realized my passion isn't embedded somewhere in the dark recesses of this dying medium. I'm not the get-the-answers-at-any-cost kind of guy. I'm a reflective sort. Yes, I seek the truth. But I also analyze it. And unless I'm employed at a 24-hour cable news network, then there's little room for analysis when I'm reporting on the latest beauty pageant. At this point, I'm only here because I'm a man of my word, or at least I'm striving to be.<br />
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Perhaps I have much to atone for. I've not been known to be a man of solid promises in the past. I was never really one who could be counted upon to do anything other than drugs. But I am determined to prove to myself I can see through any task, even one as daunting and life-extinguishing as this.<br />
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I'll end on a positive note, though. I'm flexing my creative muscles in an attempt to regain what I feel was lost over the past three and half years. I'm putting the finishing touches on, as cliche as it is, a novel. Please, hold your laughter for when you see me in person. Even if it's at my expense, the sound of merriment still manages to alleviate my torture--even if just by a fraction.<br />
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My book is essentially my story, but super fictionalized. All the elements of my life are there--plus time travel. And no, it's not some brooding love story about a teenage boy who falls in love with a sparkly time traveller. However, I don't make any promises that references to such stories aren't mentioned and subsequently bashed in my novel.<br />
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It's as serious as a story about time travelling can be, which, when you think about it, is pretty serious. I mean, Michael J. Fox nearly lost his hand while playing "Johnny B. Goode" for the class of '55 because of it.<br />
<br />
But in all actuality, I had to take my pent up sarcasm that's lost on a collegiate audience and put it somewhere. So while my tale is a serious one, it's a serious one from the point of view of a very sardonic and facetious person.<br />
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Think "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" if it were full of "That's what she said jokes" and time-travelling drag queens.<br />
<br />
So for those of you who managed to get this far in an article that in itself could be a novel, I hope it pays off. I'm going to publish the prologue of my book on this website next month. I'm sure there'll be an inclination to give me feedback, and if you think you must then I'm not going to stop you. But I am hoping the story will intrigue you enough that you'll want to purchase the rest of the book. I'm going to be listing it for 99 cents.<br />
<br />
Will it be the next "Tale of Two Cities?" Probably not. Hell, I don't even expect it to get to "Disco Bloodbath" fame, which really only found its cult following after Macualay Culkin, Seth Green, and Marilyn Manson did a film version of it. But that's neither here nor there. I'm just hoping you'll enjoy the prologue enough to seek the rest of the book.<br />
<br />
Thanks for staying with me, and thanks for giving me the drive to regain my creativity.<br />
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Peace out, bitches.
<br />
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-hereby-resign-from-dixie-sun-news-but.html" data-num-posts="50" data-width="600"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-62467003516295900942012-10-16T10:43:00.002-06:002012-10-16T10:47:22.355-06:00Howl or Homecoming? - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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Just when my school spirit was starting to rise from the grave, The Howl had to converge with Homecoming.</div>
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I understand it can’t be helped that our Gregorian calendar just happened to stick Halloween and Homecoming Week together this year. I also understand that splitting the events might result in two low-attended dances.</div>
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But what I don’t understand is why, on this most joyous of occasions, anyone would wish to deprive a Dixie State College student the chance to dress up and get down. Yes, I see the Homecoming dance has a haunted theme, but there’s a big difference between classing up a Halloween party and dressing down a classy event.</div>
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In the attempt to please everyone, I’m afraid the DSC Student Association may have just made more people more dissatisfied.</div>
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The DSCSA this year has done a lot when it comes to getting students involved. I can see it where I stand way over here in my I-don’t-want-to-want-play corner. I have to give them kudos. They’re rated five out of five Hansen Stadiums filled to the brim with eager Red Stormers.</div>
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I can’t say students have never been more involved in college life than ever before in recent times, but I can say I’ve never been more involved—and I was a DSC freshman in 2001.</div>
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But there’s one thing I just simply will never budge on, and that’s my Halloween traditions. Every year I must dress up on Halloween. Every year I must put on a great show for our trick-or-treaters. Every year I must attend some sort of Samhain soiree that leaves me feeling like I got beat up by a band of Irish soccer hooligans the next day.</div>
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Am I going to get that at a Haunted Homecoming dance? I don’t think so.</div>
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The DSCSA gets another review of five out of five anticipated events being sub-par. I’m not talking about college events. I mean life events. You know, the kind of events you really look forward to, like weddings, summer vacations and “The Golden Girls” marathons on Lifetime.</div>
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But, like my Halloween this year, each event will be delivered at only half the level expected. The weddings will be a good chance to see relatives, but the cake will taste like Styrofoam, and the bride’s dad will fall asleep during a video montage of the couple’s dating photos.</div>
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The summer vacation will be a nice getaway from school life, but the hotel won’t have a working air conditioner, and the vacation destination will be Branson, Mo.</div>
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And, of course, “The Golden Girls” marathon will be replaced with all 24 episodes of the far more unfortunate follow-up show, “The Golden Palace.” It's OK because it has three of the four original retirees, but replacing Dorothy with Cheech Marin is not as rad is it sounds.</div>
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It’s true that I can’t jump in my DeLorean and zip off to the future since the flux capacitor went all screwy. Therefore, I can't predict the exact outcome of the Haunted Homecoming Masquerade Howl Substitute, and it could be entirely possible this event will be the best of the year. However, since I can’t risk blowing the last weekend before Halloween on a ghoulish gamble, I’ll be partying elsewhere this year. </div>
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What about you? Are you pumped for the masquerade? Or are you going Matty’s route and finding entertainment off-campus? Follow @TheSkewedReview on Twitter and tell us if you’re attending this year. If not, what are your plans?</div>
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/10/howl-or-homecoming-by-matty-jacobson.html" data-num-posts="20" data-width="600"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-74462253767931053472012-10-16T10:19:00.001-06:002012-10-16T10:24:08.841-06:00Joseph Smith--Best Fiction Writer Ever? - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Matty Jacobson edits and contributes to<br />The Skewed Review</i></b></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://religion.skewedreview.com/">RELIGION</a> | <a href="http://www.dixiesunnews.com/">DIXIE SUN NEWS</a><br />
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I just want to know what makes Moses, Mohammed and Joseph Smith Jr. so special.</div>
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And I’m not questioning faith all willy-nilly here. I was once upon a time a very active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I still consider myself to be a member in all technical aspects. But when Jo Jr. questioned his faith, the heavens supposedly opened up, and he was greeted by none other than the creator himself.</div>
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But when I, and myriad others, have questions, we’re left to interpret our feelings after prayer or take the word of some member of our religion’s hierarchy. </div>
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I can't speak for any one other than myself, and since I've only officially practiced Mormonism, there's only one religion I can be truly critical of. But, from what I read in the news, I'd wager most religions are similar to mine: They teach that only a select few of us get our prayers answered in a literal way, and we're supposed to believe everything we're told whether it defies all logic or not.</div>
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I was born and bred to serve an LDS mission. I was taught from Sunday school age that it was my destiny to spread the word. I spent my entire teenage years spiraling into a deep pit of self-loathing because, after all, I’m as queer as a Wall Street executive at a reggae music festival.</div>
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But when I prayed to God to have my homosexuality abolished so I could be pure and clean for my mission, I was only left with a couple of suitcases full of sinful thoughts and a one-way ticket on the biggest guilt trip of my life.</div>
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Suffice to say, neither God nor Jesus, or even John the Baptist for that matter, appeared to me to get me through those rough times.</div>
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Trust me, I really want to give God a review right now. But I’ll just keep it to myself.</div>
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Instead I’ll give a review to the authors of all our religious texts.</div>
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So you say miracles happen? So you tell me angels literally appear to the sounds of what I can only assume are the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah” or "Come Together" by The Beatles?</div>
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OK, I’ll accept it, but how come I’ve never seen anything like that before? How come just a fraction of the billions of people on our planet are apparently worthy of God’s presence? The very insinuation that I’m less than garbage to God because my prayers elicit silence is pretty, well, un-Christlike. </div>
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My review is 10 out of 10 one-star ratings on Amazon.com for the whole collective religious works. If most of the texts weren't free, I'd say that would equate to a drop in sales. </div>
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The other day I finished reading a book about vampires. No, it wasn’t “Twilight,” but that’s beside the point. I set the book down and started wondering what the difference was between this work of fiction and the so-called historical rules laid out for us in our sacred books.</div>
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For example, I’m to believe there’s no such thing as a group of people who combust in the sunlight, live for thousands of years, and go around ripping people’s throats out just for sustenance. But I’m supposed to believe, without question, that a dude with a stick stretched out his arms and opened a catwalk through a lake, a Muslim guy split the moon just to prove a point to some pagans, and a group of Jewish people found a magical ball that pointed the way to America. </div>
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The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to consider our religious texts to be nothing more than fairy tales. </div>
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Religions do good things for the world, and I love what the people in the LDS church do. This statement is sarcasm-free. They provide jobs, they fuel the economy, they’re incredibly giving, and most of them are pretty darn nice. However, I am a little surprised more of them aren’t just a little put off by being considered the bottom most rung on the Latter-day ladder.</div>
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That can be the only explanation as to why God would reveal himself to the man who wrote the church’s scripture, right?</div>
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Have any of you had a sacred grove moment? I’d love to hear about it. Tweet me @TheSkewedReview. Let’s get this faith thing sorted out once and for all.</div>
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/10/joseph-smith-best-fiction-writer-ever.html" data-num-posts="20" data-width="600"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-85622784862836550372012-10-09T08:47:00.000-06:002012-10-09T08:53:19.556-06:00From The Archives: Halloween--The Perfect Time To Train A Pussy? - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Matty Jacobson edits and contributes to<br />The Skewed Review.</b></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The future of the human race is bound for sissyism, so let's just get used to it right now.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My roommates and I have been preparing our house for the upcoming Halloween holiday, and let me tell you it's a trick-or-treater's dream. Our house has a black light show, glow-in-the-dark spider webs, a graveyard out front, realistically gory props, and dozens of jack-o-lanterns. On top of that we've got the good candy at our house.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">All of this is great for the neighborhood children, assuming their parents let them go trick-or-treating these days.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">But for all the money we spent on decorations this year, I fear we may not be using much of the décor to spook the local kids. Kids these days are just a bunch of sissies who are being raised by overprotective parents, and this could lead to little or no trick-or-treaters at our front door. This could also lead to a future of jelly-spined wimps, but I'll get to that later.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Every Halloween I remember my own childhood. I recall getting all decked out in whatever costume I'd picked off the Kmart shelf that year and heading out the door with my siblings and friends to get that load of candy.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I distinctly remember we were never out before the sun set, and neither were the rest of the neighborhood kids for that matter.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Our costumes were almost exclusively black, so we blended into the night perfectly. No car would have seen us. And back then flashlights were for the rich kids. No, we all depended on the street lamps for illumination, if in fact there were any.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">We'd be out for hours on end, and there were never any Amber Alerts in our honor. When we came home my parents never checked my candy unless it was to unwrap it and eat it themselves, and there were a couple of years when I returned home after my parents were already asleep. Big surprise, the authorities were not notified.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Those were the good old days.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Today, however, that story has changed. Halloween is no longer the blissfully demonic night when kids roamed the streets until all hours gathering candy and toilet papering houses. Now, at 4 p.m. you'll see kids waddling down the street with both parents in tow. The kids' chubby little hands will be full of lit flashlights (despite it being daytime), iPhones (in case someone has to call 9-1-1), and maybe even a bag for gathering candy. You'll never be able to figure out what their costumes are because they're wrapped in so much Day-Glo reflective tape that they look like radioactive mummies. The whole excursion will be done in about an hour because the kids won't be allowed out after dark.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">And that's if the children are allowed to go trick-or-treating at all. In my neighborhood there is an event called "trunk-or-treat" where the neighborhood parents park their cars in a church parking lot and hand out candy from the trunks of their vehicles.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Oh yeah, that's a lot of fun. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I actually participated in this event last year for my brother's kids. Since there are only a certain amount of cars you can fit in a parking lot, the kids would just go in continuous circles collecting the same candy from the same cars over and over and over again.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">That kind of monotony breeds serial killers people!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I'm pulling out the time-machine review for this one. Overprotective parents who never let their children out of their sight should get whisked away to their own childhoods. The catch is they will have to live their childhoods the way they raise their children. It's a perspective thing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">But it isn't just Halloween. As a society we are on a slippery slope to creating a world full of whiners.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Everyone has to have a fair chance and nobody is allowed to get his or her feelings hurt. What does it teach the adults of the future when the adults of today make everything out to be villainous? I'll tell you: It teaches those kids to be scared of everything and rely on other people far too much.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I mean, look at me! I love to whine, and I wasn't even raised by overprotective parents. Imagine if I had?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I know most of you are years away from having children, but you need to start conditioning yourselves today to raise the society of tomorrow.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">When you are sitting in the old folks' home watching 24-hour cable news, do you really want to see a world infested with people wearing bike reflectors in the day and helmets while walking around? What about people who don't keep score in games anymore because that would hurt someone's feelings, or people who don't venture out at night because there may be a murderer around every corner?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The only possible upside I see to this future is that any predatory traits will definitely be bred out of people because everyone in the future will be a sniveling sissy.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Here's hoping there are at least a couple of parents in my neighborhood who will allow their kids to come trick-or-treating so we can show off our really super-rad Halloween house to at least somebody.</span>
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/10/halloween-perfect-time-to-train-pussy.html" data-num-posts="50" data-width="500"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-41150723854208727032012-09-23T08:15:00.000-06:002012-09-23T08:24:27.972-06:00Wigs Are Nature's Prozac - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root">
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I recently came upon a two-for-one deal that I couldn't pass up: I found a box set of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073629/">"Rocky Horror Picture Show"</a> and its lesser known, lesser appreciated sequel, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083067/">"Shock Treatment."</a><br />
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While the merits, casting, songs and coherence of "RHPS" far outweigh those of "ST," I still can't help but love the kitschy follow-up because, naturally, I simply adore horrible cinema.<br />
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But while annals of Skewed Reviews could be dedicated to the joys of B-movie awesomeness, this particular review is not about so-bad-they're-good films. This review was sparked by the first line of the first verse of a song called "Little Black Dress" from the aforementioned "Shock Treatment."<br />
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Dr. Cosmo McKinley is trying to convince Janet that she's fabulous, so he starts to sing a song about using apparel to make the world see how beautiful she really is.<br />
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He sings, "Ever since I was a little boy, dressing up has always been my greatest joy."<br />
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Well, yours truly could have sung this without a hint of irony, and anyone who's known me for even an iota of a moment would know it's the truth. Why, my closet dedicated strictly to wigs is always a threat to anyone who walks past it; the sheer volume of cheap, synthetic hair contained within is just waiting to burst and topple out on some unsuspecting passer-by.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>OK, so it's not ALL wigs,<br />some of it is costumes and<br />a few styrofoam heads.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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While it's true that I do have a few female wigs from Halloweens gone by, the majority of my dress-up stuff is male-oriented. I have tons of different guy wigs that I love to wear frivolously for no reason other than it's fun to have a different, extreme hair style for a few hours at a time.<br />
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There have been a few articles on the lows of depression and the stresses of anxiety, but, extreme circumstances withstanding, I've found my bluer moments can be alleviated by simply chucking a temporary coiffe atop my head. There's literally no other purpose to my owning a Broadway show's worth of hair than for my own personal enjoyment.<br />
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And what's so wrong about that? Besides my going broke on buying bobs, of course.<br />
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The little kid in us is bred out, nay, <i>destroyed</i> as soon as we're able to recognize responsibility. Whether or not it's intentional, our parents, families, friends, neighbors, and society in general makes imagination a crime by the time a child becomes a teenager. It's almost as if adults simply put up with a kid's pretending to be an astronaut or a cowboy (or in my case, Glinda) until the time presents itself when the adults can call such behavior "childish."<br />
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I say damn the adults! I may be 31 years old on the outside, but I'm pretty sure I'm regressing in age on the inside. The older I get, the younger I feel. The more wrinkles that appear on my face, the more I want to defy age by dressing up. The more responsibility that's dumped in my lap, the more I want to put on a cosplay wig, pick up a magic wand, and make magical tinkling noises while I turn my dogs into dragons.<br />
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I may be in a rest home sooner than most of you, but dammit, I'm going have a lot of fun getting there.
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<br />
<br />
Full disclosure: I'm a self mutilator. Or, at least, I was.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, I kicked that horrible habit along with a lot of other horrible habits like check fraud, drug abuse, and candy raving.<br />
<br />
However, today I got a call from a collection agency that was trying to collect on a hospital bill. Ironically, the hospital bill is for the last time I felt overwhelmed with life and ended up cutting myself.<br />
<br />
My full-time job is being Editor-in-Chief of Dixie Sun News, and while there is a scholarship involved with that, it's frankly not enough to cover any outstanding hospital bills. Needless to say, I can't pay the bill. They've already reported to the big three credit agencies, and it looks like when I do get a full-time paying job, there's the real possibility of having my wages garnished--all because I wanted to stop hurting myself.<br />
<br />
So today, in light of the harsh reminder that I can't pay for my own health, I cut myself again. Please, no sympathy, and for God's sake don't call any authorities. I'd just like to point out some reasons behind self mutilation so perhaps everyone can be a little more aware of the issue.<br />
<br />
Some people call it a cry for attention. Perhaps this is true in some cases, but it mine it's just a way of relieving a pent-up frustration that seems to have no other outlet. In the past I've abused drugs in leu of cutting, but I've been drug-free for many years now.<br />
<br />
Your average self-mutilator has a lot on his plate. He most likely feels as though he's being tugged in myriad directions at once, and a lot of people are either dependent upon him, or demand a lot from him. This is very real-world stuff, and fortunately a large portion of the population are wired to deal with this kind of stuff.<br />
<br />
But there are those of us who have underlying mental illnesses like bipolar disorder or severe depression, and when we can't afford to get the help we need, we usually end up turning to self medication or other means of instantaneous stress relief.<br />
<br />
For me, the pain of being cut overwhelms the crippling stress I'm feeling at that moment. I'm sad to say that today, after I took an Xacto Knife to my skin, I felt immensely better. I might have just stayed home and bawled and felt sorry for myself. But, after harming myself, I mustered the strength to actually take on my daily duties.<br />
<br />
I wish there were other ways of dealing with this that won't ironically lead to more medical bills. But as of now, there aren't.
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Matty Jacobson contributes to<br />and edits The Skewed Review</b></i></td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
Renewable energy is great, SUVs are Satan's dildo, pollution makes Native American cry, blah, blah, blah.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong--I'm for wind and solar power and cleaning up the environment as any other earth-friendly person. I do what I can, within my mortal capabilities, to ensure that our planet doesn't become as disgusting as the seat next to me in my geography class.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Yes, that appears to be uterine <br />lining. And yes, I'm pretty sure those <br />are smudge marks left by <br />some sort of string...</i></b></td></tr>
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I really, honestly, hand-on-the-Bible-of-Pastafarianism, do what I can to be environmentally conscious. However, the thing I can't stand about environmentalism is the environmentalist.<br />
<br />
I'm not make some sweeping generalization when I say that all self-proclaimed environmentalists are smug, better-than-thou, "I'm perfect and you're not," little dipshits. They behave as if everything they do is akin to giving Mother Nature a foot rub and a $10,000 gift card to Neman Marcus. They act like their very existence generates oxygen, and their daily bowel movements decrease their carbon footprints by 136 percent.<br />
<br />
And what's worse is they constantly tell me and the rest of the world that we are the problem.<br />
<br />
I'm always hearing how pollution is my fault, like I own every car in the world and just spend my days driving each one with the sole purpose of destroying the atmosphere. I'm blamed for river pollution, as if I have some personal vendetta against salmon. Well, anything that jumps up stream deserves to rot in hell.<br />
<br />
Fingers are always pointed at me for the decrease in Lake Mead's water, as if I drive there every day and syphon 10,000 gallons of the stuff into my own private watershed.<br />
<br />
That's right. Pollution since the Industrial Age is being blamed on anyone who isn't "green." In this day and age, when almost everyone is environmentally conscious, I'm just having a hard time understanding why I, who am only 31 years old, am always being blamed for air pollution that's been amassing since the '50s in Denver--a city I've only been to once in my life.<br />
<br />
And what's worse is the tree-huggers behave as though it's my intention to destroy Earth. I'm always treated like I'm some Captain Planet villain who has no other agenda than to rip open holes in the ozone layer.<br />
<br />
So you love the outdoors? You're environmentally friendly? You've "gone green?" Fine. <i>Stop telling me about it, and even more importantly, <b>stop blaming me for shit that's not my fault.</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Now more than ever I've seen a nation-wide initiative to be environmentally aware. We are always cleaning things up, preserving even the stupidest of creatures from being extinct, and mandating the world buy energy efficient lightbulbs. We are progressing. Stop looking for a fight. Why can't you just embrace the fact that the world is just as environmentally aware as you are?<br />
<br />
Well, except China and India.<br />
<br />
But what are we going to do? Nuke them? Just let Japan keep up whatever it is they're doing, and maybe that portion of the world will just end up nuking itself.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, please stop telling me I'm the problem. I had absolutely nothing to do with global warming. I don't wake up every morning and say to myself, "Gee, what can I do to destroy the environment today?"<br />
<br />
I just live my life as environmentally conscious as I can without having to turn into some sort of caveman. So get off my back, please.<br />
<br />
Thanks.
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />I’m voting for Mitt Romney, and so will you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In all actuality, I still haven’t decided who I’m going to mark as my choice for president of the United States of America when I step up to the voting machine in November. Barack Obama-killed-Osama has done a few things as president that make me regret voting for him less.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He has pushed human rights in the past couple of years. He’s even changed his stance on marriage equality. When it comes to world leaders stepping forward and denouncing vitriolic and antiquated ways of thinking, I must say our president Ba-rocked my world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But no matter how much I’ve been swayed back into B-Oba’s camp, it won’t matter come election time because I’m voting for Romney.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let’s take a look at Willy Romney and the Corporate Factory and see what he’s done. He’s usually impeccably dressed, he’s a faithful family man, and he has the kind of money that makes everyone hate him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve noticed a lot of rich folks get a pretty bad rap in the U.S., but sometimes I think the detestation of the wealthy comes from our jealousy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Those of us who demand the so-called 1 percent to pay more taxes get a review of a year’s worth of Mitt Romney’s salary. Oh, and we have to give it back when someone demands it. That way we’ll all at least know what it feels like to have a fortune taken forcibly away from us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Do I think the rich shouldn’t pay more taxes? Well, I actually think they should. But, I’ve also never been rich, so I can’t speak on a rich person’s behalf.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, that’s not why I’m voting for Rom-com.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks to my (and your) geographical location in America, I could cast my vote for Roseanne Barr, Ron Paul, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Mouse, Lady Gaga or myself, and it still wouldn’t matter. Living in Utah means we’re all voting for Mittens.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks to Utah’s being synonymous with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the majority of our state’s population will cast its vote for Rom-knees-and-toes-eyes-ears-mouth-and-nose. And due to the nature of our country’s Electoral College (which isn’t even accredited, for Founding Fathers’ sake!), the majority of one state voting one way in a presidential election means the minority of the same state will be voting the same way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t have to rehash history. We’ve seen presidents elected in the past who actually didn’t get the majority of the nation’s vote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m rating the people responsible for the Electoral College two presidential terms of talking to every single person in the United States. Each person must be asked, "Who should be president?" Then, the Electoral College faculty, which is presumably what they're called, will have to tally up the numbers by hand. And when it's all over, I get to take the results, burn them, and then tell the E.C. peeps that none of it mattered. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That's sort of how I feel when they swoop in and discount my vote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yep. I'm voting for Romney because I have no choice, and neither do you. So the question is: Should I even vote at all? Or should you? I'd like to find out what you think. Follow me on Twitter @TheSkewedReview and follow Dixie Sun News @DixieSunNews and let's talk about #UnintentionalVotes4Romney. Since all Utahns will be voting for Romney, whether we like it or not, we should at least have some conversations about possible solutions. </span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlqZvaKheMdyjEroXius4O7KaSYyPybRI59hcyWM9uYREHiyJnVPFnPhtfRrvbi8pXBxlS6K3hQGJ9K9FQbhRMwh_bT24DT0YDCNfz_GdBE0nwQdB9Ar1SHuvVSwlS6K9YPB2dsQXpzPM/s1600/Photo+on+2012-09-02+at+19.25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlqZvaKheMdyjEroXius4O7KaSYyPybRI59hcyWM9uYREHiyJnVPFnPhtfRrvbi8pXBxlS6K3hQGJ9K9FQbhRMwh_bT24DT0YDCNfz_GdBE0nwQdB9Ar1SHuvVSwlS6K9YPB2dsQXpzPM/s320/Photo+on+2012-09-02+at+19.25.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://college.skewedreview.com/">COLLEGE LIFE</a><br />
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Oh darkness, I love thee so. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the most horrible things about becoming an adult is
the tendency to ignore our childish thrills. We don’t believe we can fly if we
try hard enough, we’re definitely never going to find that pot of gold, and
that monster in the closet suddenly stops existing at night. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or does it? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As adults, our brains are constantly trying to rationalize
things and make us behave in rational ways. Our dreams and nightmares become
just those things that happen when we sleep. Once the sun peaks, the light
shines and we’re able to see the whole truth. And the truth, when you come to
think of it, is so bland. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, in the dark of the night when we can’t see what
lurks in the shadows, the truth becomes the worst thing we can imagine. Whatever
it is our brains conjure are the things that wait for us in the places where
the streetlights don’t shine. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, let me deviate from my Poe-etic rant and review our
little hamlet as it stands after dark. I’m rating the streets of St. George nine
out of 10 burned-out streetlamps for being too blasted bright. Here we are,
stuck in the middle of a desert where we could fully enjoy the wonders of the
night sky, and what do we do? We try our hardest to make certain each star has
to compete with our LDS temple. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hopefully it’s somewhat clear how much I value the night.
It’s beautiful and it’s scary. You know, like me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Darkness is the time when the adultisms that have been
beaten into us over a lifetime seem to recede a bit in favor of those
vampirical forces that rear their terrorific faces in the absence of light.
Yes, I made up three words for that run-on sentence. The adult in you sort of
hates it, right? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s where the night comes in handy. Who’s to say there
isn’t some demonic hell creature in your hallway closet that can only appear at
midnight? Can anyone say for certain that a coven of witches doesn’t gather
outside your dorm every new moon and cast spells? Is it absolute fact that a
dragon doesn’t appear and search our streets for gold when it’s impossible to
see? Can you show me documentation that a flock of fairies isn’t hiding in the
rubble of the Whitehead building just waiting for the sun to go down so they
can fly around and cause mischief? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I advise you to take some time at night and let your
imagination run free. Drive out to the middle of the desert, lay out on a
blanket, and look up to the heavens. Let your thoughts get carried away. Turn
out all the lights in your house, sit alone in the darkness, and see how long
it takes for your imagination to create some other-worldly being.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or do what I do. Go on a midnight run down an abandoned
trail. It’s thrilling to imagine some zombie or cannibal or Leatherface just
waiting around the next corner to gouge out my eyeballs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
OK, I must deviate again to add a review. For those of you
who think you can actually go out running by yourselves in the middle of the
night, you need to reevaluate our society. Your review is to read five out of
five articles on rapes and muggings that happen at night. If you take my advice
and go nighttime adventuring, then do it with a buddy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have plenty of time to see things as they are when the
sun shines. It’s when our planet faces the void of space that we get to see
things as they might never be. Nighttime is when our child returns to us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I say, come out little child. Come play in the dark. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->
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<div class="fb-comments" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/09/darkness-is-boys-best-friend-by-matty.html" data-num-posts="30" data-width="500"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-16581253504489018682012-09-18T18:14:00.000-06:002012-09-18T18:21:06.340-06:00Courts need to reevaluate insanity - By Mark Schurr<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13pHiCPPapl7ZSxXdYLe80SmIeg6JS_pG9Us7lK5ctLM-puU8NDKQ1atI1Obc-c2bLkZr74vHM0JkNB4xySLWOEx__Obh91VrPB32pCsvRzwNg4EdwWM4BZN4st3PVAEfHT2Csil14gk/s1600/MarkSchurr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13pHiCPPapl7ZSxXdYLe80SmIeg6JS_pG9Us7lK5ctLM-puU8NDKQ1atI1Obc-c2bLkZr74vHM0JkNB4xySLWOEx__Obh91VrPB32pCsvRzwNg4EdwWM4BZN4st3PVAEfHT2Csil14gk/s320/MarkSchurr.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Mark Schurr is a contributor to The Skewed Review.</i></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.skewedreview.com/">THE SKEWED REVIEW</a> | <a href="http://news.skewedreview.com/">NEWS & POLITICS</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">
<br />
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/09/courts-need-to-reevaluate-insanity-by.html" data-send="false" data-width="500" data-show-faces="true"></div><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="http://theskewedreviewhome.blogspot.com/2012/09/courts-need-to-reevaluate-insanity-by.html" data-via="DixieSunNews">Tweet</a><br />
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");</script>Sometimes the perception of
sanity and insanity is utterly lost in the heart and minds of the U.S. judicial
system. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">People who rape children, commit mass murder or claim to be an angel of
God to brutally kill innocent people cannot be sane, but in the eyes of the law
they are deemed lucid. Strangely enough, it's a good thing the courts have found
baleful criminals to be of reasonable mind.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The Oxford
Dictionary defines insanity as "psychotic, neurotic, demented,
out of one's mind or wits, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">a manic;
taking leave of one's senses."</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Do the U.S. courts know what insanity
is? In some cases, no, and that's actually the right call in the eyes of the
law. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">In my lifetime, the U.S. justice system has rendered some </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">parents who rape their own children, mass murders, and gang rapist of children to be of sound
mind. Anybody who commits hostile crimes such as the above are highly
disturbed. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Many nefarious
criminals spend a lifetime in prison as opposed to being allowed their freedom
due to innocence by reason of insanity. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Imagine if the
courts declared Charles Manson and his followers, a.k.a. the Manson Family, to be
crazy. Had any of them been ruled demented, they might be free today. Yes, even
if Manson or any of his sadistic clan were found to be insane, it's highly
doubtful they would have ever been freed. However, they would have had a shot
at freedom if by law they were deemed </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">psychotic.
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">In July, Martin
Pulido-Sanchez, 45, was sentenced to life in prison for 11 counts of lewd sexual
conduct with his two daughters, both under the age of 14 according to the
article by Julie Johnson, <a href="http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120712/ARTICLES/120719836">"Petaluma Man Sentenced to 165 Years in Prisonfor Molesting Daughters."</a> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Johnson's
article claims the two girls were raped regularly for years. Sometimes
Pulido-Sanchez would have one of his daughters on the lookout while he sexually
abused the other. This is not the act of a rational person in my eyes, but
since the law has found him clear-headed, Pulido-Sanchez received a life
sentence. Had Pulido-Sanchez been depicted in court as a lunatic, perhaps
he'd be allowed to live in an
unlocked facility such as the Home of New Beginnings. Brief details about the
Home of New Beginnings will follow.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The law thankfully prosecuted three boys in the '90s in New Jersey for
sodomizing and raping a 17-year old girl with a baseball bat and broom handle </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">who possessed the brain of
an eight-year-old. By law, the demented
high schoolers who partook in this damnable crime were pellucid. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/reviews/970803.03bankst.html">"A WholeLot of Poor Judgement,"</a> an article by Russell Banks, details the merciless crimes initiated by two high school brothers--a true buzz
kill of a story. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The whole
innocence by reason of insanity is comical to me. I believe certain criminals
are truly insane and are sincerely remorseful of their crimes. However, certain
crimes, even if only committed once, are unforgivable. The perpetrator(s)
should never be allowed in society again. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Insane people
should not be put in federal prisons, but those who've committed wretched
crimes should spend the rest of their lives in a maximum gated facility. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">It's scary to
me that a Sonoma County court judge in May ruled Matthew Beck not to be a
threat to society anymore. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">In February
2000, Beck viciously stabbed Sandra Napier 28 times and her mother 17 times to
death in Rohnert Park with a kitchen knife. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Beck told police he was an angel of God, and the
women were evil spirits. Sounds like the plot of of "Frailty" with Matthew McConaughey and Bill
Paxton released in 2001. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The article <a href="http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120523/ARTICLES/120529796?p=2&tc=pg">"Family of Rohnert Park Killer UpsetAbout His Release,"</a> by Paul Payne, explains how the U.S. courts have regarded Beck to be insane. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I've done the math on
Beck's potential release according to the article <a href="http://rohnertpark.patch.com/articles/judge-approves-release-of-hospital-patient-committed-after-double-murder">"Judge Approves Releaseof Hospital Patient Committed After Double Murder."</a> </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The article stated it would take about two months for Beck to be sent to the Anka Behavior
Health Northstar facility in Manteca. The article claims Beck would spend about
three months in the Manteca facility before being sent to live in The Home of
New Beginnings in Santa Rosa. It's highly possible Beck could be free come
October. The above article, like
Payne's, claims it could be years before Beck's release. <i>Could</i> it be years before
his release? This news is not promising to me. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Technically, Beck is one
daft man, but dollars to doughnuts Napier's family would have felt
much better if Beck were ruled to have a lucid mind in the perception of the
law. If Beck is sent to live In The Home of New Beginnings, he'd be living in
the same county as the Napier's surviving family members. Talk about an
uncomfortable silence if any of the family members run into Beck in town!</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">James Holmes, the prime
suspect who massacred movie patrons in Aurora, Colo., in July needs the law to
consider him sane. If the judge
ruling on Holmes' case finds him fatuous, he and Beck might be room dogs in the
Home of New Beginnings unrestrained in society. Yes, I know the odds of this
happening are the same as having a truthful government, but in this case lie
on. </span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-34424548934223517062012-08-16T12:41:00.001-06:002012-08-16T12:46:25.904-06:00Elections Poor Excuse to End Friendships - By Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root"></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Matty Jacobson edits and contributes to<br />The Skewed Review</i></b></td></tr>
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Election year.</div>
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So much can be derived from that simple sentence fragment. Debate. Criticism. Camaraderie. Hate. Information. Misinformation. Blasphemy. Flatulence. It’s all implied.</div>
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This will be the year we see exalted scholars and sainted philosophers emerge from their secret underground laboratories (which are buried deep beneath Las Vegas, I assume) to explain to the dumber among us why all old people will die if Mitt Romney is chosen as our next president. This is the time when the illustrious academics and noble intellectuals will land their spaceships made of gold to inform us why Barack Obama will destroy all religion if he’s elected to another term.</div>
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And the saddest part about an election year is not the fabrication of scare tactics meant to panic the most idiotic of Internet readers. And it’s not the brushing aside of all news that falls outside the realm of campaigns. No, the saddest thing is that the biases end friendships.</div>
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This is especially true for those of us in Utah who fall within that political gray zone. Many of us don’t necessarily agree with one side or the other, but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of our friends and family do.</div>
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This really hit home with me when I noticed something one of my friends posted on his Facebook feed after he read an article titled <a href="http://front.moveon.org/10-things-the-romney-campaign-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-paul-ryan/" style="color: #b7340d; text-decoration: none;">“10 things the Romney campaign doesn’t want you to know about Paul Ryan,”</a> which was published on MoveOn.org on Aug. 13.</div>
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His status read: “If you read this entire article and the sources listed and still choose to vote for this [posterior opening], then I have nothing more to say to you. Please defriend me now. I don’t wanna be Facebook friends with anyone who agrees with his agenda. I believe that YOU are part of the problem.” </div>
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You don’t need me to tell you that one of the most precious commodities we can come by on this planet is a friend. Well, oxygen, water and food, of course, are pretty important too. Yes, and shelter and freedom as well. But none of those seem worth it if a person has nobody to share them with.</div>
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Take a quick second and imagine how your life would fare at Dixie State College if you alienated all your acquaintances simply because you didn’t see eye-to-eye on one subject or another. I’d be willing to bet all the money in my pocket plus a post-dated check in the amount of $100,000 (to be cashed in the year 2080) that there isn’t one single person on earth who holds the exact same point of view as you do on every single subject under the sun.</div>
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And if that were the case, humanity would be pretty damn bland.</div>
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You’d have a significantly lonely collegiate career for the next two to four years without a couple of buddies to chow down with in the Red Rock Café.</div>
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If you’re willing to destroy a friendship because a friend seems to agree more with the Romney side of things (or vice versa), then I’m afraid I have to award you four out of four miserable, friendless years where people don’t want to be around you for fear of their every word being scrutinized.</div>
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Thomas Jefferson once said, “I have never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friendship.”</div>
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Call me crazy, but I actually think our Founding Fathers had a little bit of sense.</div>
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Can we have healthy debate and disagree with each other? Of course we can. How else will we satisfy our constant need to prove to everyone else that we think we know what we’re talking about? But should a difference of opinion mean we should cast aside our friends? Of course not.</div>
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For the record, my Facebook buddy informed me that he, indeed, was willing to eliminate friendships on the grounds that he no longer respects anyone who would vote for Mitt Romney.</div>
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The biggest review of this article goes to those of you who have the ability to disagree with one another but still realize that some politician purchased with corporate funds is far less important than the relationships in your personal life. You, my friends, get to live your lives in happiness. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Need more? Visit Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview and "like" it, follow it on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and subscribe at YouTube.com/TheSkewedReview! You can interact with Matty and tell him how much you'd like to punch his face in!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08038311597766096041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736286929604763568.post-40822020451195537332012-08-07T06:18:00.002-06:002012-08-07T09:13:07.770-06:00The 5 Lies We're Telling Ourselves About "Dark Knight Rises" - by Matty Jacobson<div id="fb-root">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7T8BwG87diWfKiFmQNBMLHZFpcH74YaIxxjKyJ-723Z6yDhebMDPV31H5vYxlgisiX_1wt7xHDTrAmQzRVjyDM6EkiJVEU61t-OO9Nwoc4aZ4aPmWHyFLgoamvbLzoN65ebxUhjPvosM/s1600/Photo+on+2012-08-07+at+05.51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7T8BwG87diWfKiFmQNBMLHZFpcH74YaIxxjKyJ-723Z6yDhebMDPV31H5vYxlgisiX_1wt7xHDTrAmQzRVjyDM6EkiJVEU61t-OO9Nwoc4aZ4aPmWHyFLgoamvbLzoN65ebxUhjPvosM/s320/Photo+on+2012-08-07+at+05.51.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Matty Jacobson edits and contributes to<br />The Skewed Review.</i></b></td></tr>
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Christopher Nolan is one of the most celebrated directors of our time. The ending to "Inception" could arguably be one of the most talked about in cinematic history. And, of course, how can we not consider "The Dark Knight" as one of the best renditions of the Batman universe ever? Yes, Christopher Nolan is a genius. Let's all take a moment to bow down to him, light a candle in his honor, and slaughter the nearest goat in his name.<br />
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All done? OK. Now that we're done praising his name and all his glory, let's get down to the reasons why we're all lying to ourselves about Nolan's last installment of his Batman trilogy: "The Dark Knight Rises."<br />
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Caution: <b><i>THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS ARTICLE</i></b>, and I will undoubtedly offend many of you <a href="http://terminology.skewedreview.com/">Nolanites</a> who are so invested in "The Dark Knight Rises" that you're unwilling to see it's many, many, <i>many</i> flaws. Since I know you're already gathering your counter-arguments, then <a href="http://submit.skewedreview.com/">please consider writing a whole article</a>. I will publish it if you write it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Successes</b></span><br />
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First, I'd like to point out the merits of "The Dark Knight Rises." I'm not a total hater, you see. But I am a comic book enthusiast, so when any adaptations leap from the pages of my cheaply printed $2.99 magazine to the big screen, I have the tendency to see how compatible said films are with the books I so love.<br />
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Let me start with what many Skewed Review fans might have been waiting for (or at least I'll pretend there are people out there who care about The Skewed Review enough to be waiting for this): Catwoman. Or, rather, Selena Kyle.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyMNd31HJm6rJ-K_VOiNit1OHdi8avmRXu-9DYpRJkdN_3_BNuPJ7t4RkxU-E54UtCjC0Auj7B80VqH8p2uABJf7PuuOPTJn8-SoMWRaYjSdkvt6sAbHwkbjSGhpjerVjclZ-Vcs48Ppo/s1600/Photo+on+2012-08-07+at+06.57+%233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyMNd31HJm6rJ-K_VOiNit1OHdi8avmRXu-9DYpRJkdN_3_BNuPJ7t4RkxU-E54UtCjC0Auj7B80VqH8p2uABJf7PuuOPTJn8-SoMWRaYjSdkvt6sAbHwkbjSGhpjerVjclZ-Vcs48Ppo/s320/Photo+on+2012-08-07+at+06.57+%233.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, this sexy bitch. <br />Oh, and Catwoman, too. </span></i></b></td></tr>
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I am a huge Catwoman fan. I wrote an entire article on <a href="http://www.dixiesunlink.com/opinion/catwoman-s-redemption-an-example-to-follow-1.1823491#.UCEMrjEsDcY">why we should all strive to be like her</a>. Granted, DC Comics has since rebooted the character of Catwoman and put her back in the role of cat burglar, but the message I was portraying in that article still remains pretty relevant. Selena Kyle may be a criminal, but she's got honor.<br />
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I was definitely leery of Nolan's decision to cast Anne Hatheway as Selena Kyle, and I pretty much dumped on the decision in <a href="http://theskewedreview.blogspot.com/2011/08/little-skewed-review-on-chick-named.html">this article</a> that compared every Catwoman that we've seen brought to life. But, I might have spoken too soon.<br />
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In all actuality, Hatheway did a pretty good job portraying Catwoman. In fact, I felt as though her story in "The Dark Knight Rises" was lifted beautifully from the pages of Frank Miller's Batman story arc, "<a href="http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/batman-year-one-deluxe-edition-0">Year One</a>." If you're not a fan of reading, then what are you doing on this website? But seriously, you can see the adapted cartoon film (<i>not</i> for kids!) that gives you the gist of a Catwoman who's committed to her friends but is out to get big spenders like Bruce Wayne.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElPZ7w5P0VU7qG-SpXULRetfDy7RRJx71MKhIEvYmVTPuSKikOkF12Uc59KXX3Tjed8kA86zq8BlLmkAJmQBqIcHCTPynqYLjwhDnnThLr27SJAEvC2JPityLnBE6Xa-9M0oOynoTeKU/s1600/IMG_0391.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElPZ7w5P0VU7qG-SpXULRetfDy7RRJx71MKhIEvYmVTPuSKikOkF12Uc59KXX3Tjed8kA86zq8BlLmkAJmQBqIcHCTPynqYLjwhDnnThLr27SJAEvC2JPityLnBE6Xa-9M0oOynoTeKU/s320/IMG_0391.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Is it just me, or does it look like<br />Catwoman is tripping Batman? </span></b></i></td></tr>
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There's no doubt that Nolan's version of Selena Kyle was heavily influenced by Miller's Catwoman in "Year One." So, there you go. Well done. Wait, did I say "successes" earlier? Oh. I guess I meant "success." Singular. Even then, I think my approval of Selena Kyle could be chalked up to my having little or no expectations of Nolan's Catwoman to begin with. So I guess I was pleasantly surprised to see Hatheway did so well in the role.<br />
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Now onto the reason you're here in the first place: the lies we're telling ourselves. Please note, these all have to do with "The Dark Knight Rises," and not "The Dark Knight." OK? OK.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>No. 5: "Batman can exist in the real world!"</b></span><br />
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Have you seen the so-called "<a href="http://www.reallifesuperheroes.com/">real life superheroes</a>" that are popping up globally? These people actually dress up in costumes and then prowl the streets. They often end up <a href="http://www.newser.com/story/109534/thugs-beat-up-real-life-superhero.html">getting their asses handed to them by thugs</a> or <a href="http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/63484722.html">facing criminal charges for assault.</a> The proof is legitimate that a costumed vigilante is nothing short of a joke in the real world.<br />
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But Christopher Nolan attempted to place Batman in as real a world as possible. That's fine, I guess, except when you look into the pages of a DC comic book and you see images like this:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhSPeiDbYsLtX7TqKABdnSTgmzuJy7Sx0iVnKifFY7CN2vQBM_DJuT3mCQGL7UuRNniGaF6U_aqGb7cXtomhFcqCuW5cD5ncCjnHg65n9F4ZHuJ-IPJJxxy_HsVXHEAmIjffLNEEs5kdY/s1600/IMG_0389.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhSPeiDbYsLtX7TqKABdnSTgmzuJy7Sx0iVnKifFY7CN2vQBM_DJuT3mCQGL7UuRNniGaF6U_aqGb7cXtomhFcqCuW5cD5ncCjnHg65n9F4ZHuJ-IPJJxxy_HsVXHEAmIjffLNEEs5kdY/s320/IMG_0389.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>That's some real world stuff right there.</i></b></span> </td></tr>
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OK, fine. That's from one of my "Catwoman" titles (the only book I read now). But she's still in the Batman universe. DC knows that there's a certain amount of camp that needs to go along with costumed superheroes. In order for us to believe that there are legitimate crime fighters out there who feel the need to put on capes, then we need to suspend the belief that the rest of the world goes on with business as usual.<br />
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This is where Nolan's universe starts to crumble a bit. He devotes so much energy into making Batman work in the "real world" that, when something campy <i>does</i> happen, it comes across as laughable rather than believable--at least in "The Dark Knight Rises."<br />
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Take, for example, the part part in "The Dark Knight Rises" when Bane tricks the <i>entire Gotham police force</i> into going into the sewers below the city. Yeah, the <i>whole </i>force. Now, in a comic book world, this might not be so far-fetched.<br />
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In the DC universe, Gotham police are, well, pretty stupid. The only credible person associated with Gotham's Black and Whites who isn't a total dumb ass is Commissioner Gordon. This is the reason we have Batman in the first place. Obviously the people hired to watch over the city are completely incapable of doing it at all, so an emotionally scarred billionaire must pick up the slack.<br />
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But in the real world? No authority figure in his right mind would send an entire police force below ground. It would never happen. Even if Jim Gordon was hopped up on morphine in the hospital and gave ridiculous orders, there would be at least someone along the way who would say something like: "Is it really a good idea to have <i>every single one of us</i> go into the sewers? Shouldn't we at least have half of us stay topside, especially considering there's, like, a whole city full of people that would be left <i>un-policed?"</i><br />
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Nolan needed to stop trying so damned hard to make Gotham as real as possible and at least allow for some amount of acknowledged camp. Because when you try and sell me a real world situation, then I expect real world actions and consequences.<br />
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Of course, too much camp can be, well, too much. I'm not saying Nolan should go the way of Joel Shumacher's rendition of the Batman universe. I think we can all agree that "Batman Forever" and "Batman & Robin" were two atrocities that the world could have done without. But we <i>can</i> look to Tim Burton's first "Batman" to gauge where good camp can balance out.<br />
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Yes, Burton's film is dated, so we must keep that in mind. But it also didn't take itself so seriously that when something comic book-esque happens (like an airplane flying between buildings in order to scoop up giant balloons filled with poison), the audience isn't left thinking, "Wha...? But, I, that wouldn't happen!"<br />
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<b style="font-size: x-large;">No. 4: "The dialogue was excellent!"</b><br />
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"Talk about an excellent script! All of Bane's monologues were so awesome! Oh, and that exchange between Batman and Bane? Pure genius!" -- Every diluted fanboy on the Internet.<br />
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See, here's where allowing your movie to acknowledge its own campiness can come in handy. When a federal government employee sees an internationally most-wanted criminal for the first time and, for argument's sake, shouts, "Why do you wear the mask?!" then it might not come across as out-of-place in a film that, without superheroes, would be about legacy-driven terrorist acts.<br />
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But it's not just the <i>audible</i> dialogue that's an issue (although, it really is a huge issue).<br />
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There are whole scenes in the film where, unless you're dedicated to seeing it multiple times, characters speak to each other in ways that are wholly gibberish to a movie-goer. Yes, I get that Bane has to speak through that mask, but I could definitely understand some of his words ("What happens when you take off the mask?!" "It would be extremely painful--for you.")<br />
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So that tells me that Bane has the capability to <i>be understood.</i> So why couldn't he be understood the whole time? Your guess is as good as mine. And I <a href="http://www.manolith.com/2012/07/24/ten-things-that-were-stupid-about-the-dark-knight-rises/">don't seem to be the only person on earth who agrees</a> that Christian Bale's raspy Batman voice is not only hard to understand, but also just plain goofy. So I'll leave that right there.<br />
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Please, someone send me a transcript of that final exchange between Batman and Bane. To me it just sounded like a dog barking at a broken McDonald's drive-thru speaker.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>No. 3: "Oscars all around! What superb acting!"</b></span><br />
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I guess I'm the only one who will admit that Christian Bale came across as completely apathetic to the role. I honestly felt like he didn't want to be in that role. I hope his AT&T bill didn't bankrupt him considering the amount of phoning-in he had to do in order to complete this movie.<br />
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But it wasn't necessarily the main characters who drove me nuts. Like I said before, Anne Hatheway was not disappointing. Oscar-worthy? No. And Tom Hardy was pretty good as Bane. I love me some Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman can do no wrong in my eyes (even though he pretty much did wrong in this movie), and how dare anyone call into question Michael Caine?<br />
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Actually, I believe Caine pulled out the best performance of the whole cast. But unless Caine died during filming, I don't think the Academy will be handing him any awards.<br />
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But it's the people who <i>weren't</i> top-billed who I took issue with. I'm talking about the random cops/EMTs/Gothamites Nolan felt the need to zoom in on at various points in the film. For example, when Batman makes his triumphant return (the first of only two times Batman actually appears in the movie), Nolan zooms in on the reactions of police officers and emergency responders. The reaction shots look like bits of a how-to film that might be shown in an improv class.<br />
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"See, students? This is what we call 'surprised!'"<br />
<br />
The thing is, these reactionary faces happened throughout the entire film. I couldn't figure out why Nolan decided to choose random bad actors and zoom in on their faces. It was like a parade of Overactors Anonymous. Who are these people? Why are they getting this type of screen time?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>No. 2: "The plot makes perfect sense."</b></span><br />
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When Nolan decided to introduce Bane, Catwoman, Robin and Talia Al Ghul into the same story, then he had to at least <i>attempt</i> to make all the characters fit together in some semblance of the comic book story arcs from which they are borrowed.<br />
<br />
For example, Bane is most commonly recognized as <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Bane">the villain who broke Batman's back</a>, thus putting him out of commission for as long as DC execs decided they'd had enough of their <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Azrael_(Jean-Paul_Valley)">replacement Batman.</a><br />
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Talia Al Ghul is the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, and she's actually the mother to Bruce Wayne's kid Damian, who would one day become Robin. And Robin, at least the <i>first</i> Robin, is Dick Grayson, who, apparently, does not appear in this film. Oh, and then there's Catwoman, the chick who is responsible for doing things like this:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9r2jfZrDctOqTdw9bYpT3jvZuteO4zlU2GNM9P9vdyJ5w77m2eXXxt0fLTv3hz5YGwDGzfyqWGZ4WMgyVfzdkV382kIrDmRVUi3z0sfe4smBRFkgi43VuKX1PO7glduCi5y4uekoJsE/s1600/IMG_0388.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9r2jfZrDctOqTdw9bYpT3jvZuteO4zlU2GNM9P9vdyJ5w77m2eXXxt0fLTv3hz5YGwDGzfyqWGZ4WMgyVfzdkV382kIrDmRVUi3z0sfe4smBRFkgi43VuKX1PO7glduCi5y4uekoJsE/s320/IMG_0388.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>For as many times as this <br />has happened, I'm surprised <br />Catwoman isn't a Batman <br />baby mamma, too. <br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1764771142">Oh, wait a minute...</a></i></b></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Crisis"> </a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So in order for Bane to break Batman's back, and for Catwoman to get her some Batmaction, and for Robin to essentially want to become Robin, and for Talia Al Ghul to screw Bruce Wayne, and for Ra's Al Ghul to come back to life (which is his thing in the comic books), we got a rookie cop who knows Batman's identity, convinces him to put his costume back on, but not after Bruce investigates this cat burglar, but also has to beat up a masked terrorist who is screwing Batman's girlfriend who happens to be the daughter of Batman's old nemesis and, oh, Bruce Wayne has to hallucinate Liam Neeson for about seven seconds.<br />
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Now, the definition of "contrived" can be found at, let me see, oh--at your local theater. Just go see "The Dark Knight Rises."<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>No. 1: "This is just as good as, if not better than, 'The Dark Knight!'"</b></span><br />
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"Batman Begins" was just too "blah" for my taste. In fact, my favorite Batman film doesn't come from Christopher Nolan at all. It's also not Tim Burton's first film, either. I'm unapologetic about my love for "Batman Returns," for this reason alone:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Batmanreturnspostercatwoman.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Batmanreturnspostercatwoman.png" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Pussy never looked so good.</i></b></span> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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But, after "Batman Returns" and "Batman," I'd have to say that "The Dark Knight" is my third-favorite Batman flick. Does it suffer a bit because of the whole "this is the real world" thing? Yeah, but it wasn't so bogged down with campy comic book characters that the film came off as ridiculous. The fact that the one character, Joker, was the primary villain for the better portion of the film aided in the reality of that universe.<br />
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I will argue to this day that Heath Ledger wouldn't have got an Oscar if he hadn't died. Was his portrayal of The Joker eerie and compelling? Yes. But was it Oscar-worthy? I don't think so. But despite the sympathy award, I still love "The Dark Knight."<br />
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So it's making me a little confused when I hear fanboys saying "The Dark Knight Rises" is better. I'm sorry, but it's not. In the universe that Christopher Nolan created, "TDKR" would need to be one villain short in order to be cohesive with the rest of the franchise.<br />
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There was just too much going on in the newest film. I'm just sad that so many people behave like such sheep and give "TDKR" such praise when it doesn't deserve it. It was OK. It just wasn't this fabulous cinema treasure that warrants such fanboy praise that one can't help but think these Internet junkies are sitting at their computers without pants 24/7 in anticipation of giving "Dark Knight Rises" as much praise as possible.<br />
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But, since I know there are some of you out there who disagree with me, please take this opportunity to <a href="http://submit.skewedreview.com/">submit your own article</a>. I guarantee I'll publish it as long as you stick to the guidelines.<br />
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