now forthwith today

Dear Ynki: stop funding extreme little factions that perpetrate violent and deadly actions. We’re sick of you meddling in foreign affairs whilst maintaining your false and presumptive airs; your business is between your own borders only not out here supporting wars as some call holy. Roll back your war machine and fire the brass and please do so quickly to prove you’ve got class; the world it is reeling from criminal dealings used by you to force upon others your feelings of inadequacy and helplessness too - just look at all of the cruel things that you do. You claim to want but to help and to aid but if that is true sip more of your Kool-Aide for nearly all actions you’ve done in the past have had dire outcomes (think shell- and bomb-blast). Your elections will be another sick farce of bullshit comparisons ‘twixt bitch and arse - please deal with your own probs before lecturing us on how we must alter this or that thing. This missive won’t impact upon Ynki’s mind; for too long he’s been by war-making defined; for too long his angry and aggressive bent has seen untold gallons of good lifeblood spent. Grigovians though have seen enough of killing and enough of plutocrats’ smoke-filled-room dealings; we demand an end to these bunk Ynki ways not soon or next year but now forthwith today.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

practicing for peace

Unlike the majority of his schoolmates and friends who received video games such as Modern Warfare or Call Of Duty for their b-days or x-mas this year, 9 year-old prissy pants Samwell Youlissees Chorrand, of Oxnard, California was elated to get as a present a copy of the first edition of Mashing Buttons 4 Peace, or MB4P. Available only in select areas and sold only to little fucking weaklings and their fucking weakling moms, MB4P is slated to underwhelm all expectations, and to sell poorly. Said a source at Electronic Arts (EA), the company that created the game, who demanded he remain anonymous so as to spare himself and his family a lifetime of public mockery, “We made MB4P because a group of parents – OK, moms – kept emailing us about the violent nature of most of our teen-oriented games, claiming they would sue if we didn't come up with something for the pre-teen and teen markets not focused on war-making, death, murder, terrorism, or the wiping out of turban-wearing baddies. MB4P is, well, it's something, but, well… fuck, man, you did promise not to print my name in this article, right?”

In Mashing Buttons 4 Peace, the player depresses various keys on a wireless controller in time to music or in synchrony with images displayed on the screen, which causes an elaborately-crafted avatar to twirl about and leap for joy in one of only a handful of locations, either in a field of golden swaying wheat, in the Great Chamber at the United Nations building in New York City, or in a sky-scape made up entirely of rainbows. (After forcing ourselves to play MB4P for long enough to reach the first save-point, it appears to us that the optimization of one's avatar for cooperative wheat-field-spinning is the game's primary purpose.) According to young Master Chorrand, the game is, “Awesome. So cool. Just look at the little guy who kinda looks like me dancing at the U.N. with all types of other avatars who have different skin-tones and different costumes. What a treat.” While looking on lovingly and filling out the insurance forms necessary to cover her son when he is beaten down and physically abused at school for being a little fucking pussy-ass bitch, Mrs. Tarranz Jaimms Chorrand, aged 42, proclaimed: “I am so very happy that EA bowed to our wishes and finally came up with a game that promotes Global Peace and that fosters peaceful coexistence between all humans, regardless of dress, religion, or choice of head-covering. The sole remaining task for us Mothers Against War-Making In Video Games, or MAWMIVG, is to convince the rest of America's parents to stop buying games that train young children in the art of making war or that convince kids it is OK to firebomb a shack filled with people, to shoot airplanes piloted by humans from the sky, or to daisy-chain claymores so as to create the most effective killing-zones. Land-sakes – we're so close, I can feel it.”

Electronic Arts initially fought demands to release a game for teens focused on practicing peace, claiming that it already produces a range of products aimed at children under the age of eight years whose tender brains and stunted views of the realities of life under American world-imperialism make them prone to cry and to wet their pants upon seeing violent images of war. Said the unnamed source at EA after he had returned from the greasy-spoon's bathroom to discover a hundred dollar bill sitting under his half-eaten plate of cheap diner food. “With none of the major television channels or news networks showing pictures of our ongoing wars of aggression or our continuing attempts to subjugate the peoples of the world to the demands of our homegrown corporate profit-mongers, it is our duty to harden the minds of our future soldiers and to get them ready for lives as hired guns in the all-volunteer Armed Forces of the United States of America.”

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on girls in movies

  Some time ago I was discussing,  with a close associate, the film Kick Ass. He had expressed his concern about the scene in which the character named Hitgirl is beaten unconscious by the movie's main antagonist. He had said something to the tune of, "If it's now ok to have little girls getting the shit kicked out of them, then, in films releasing in the future, it will be ok for all little girls to get the shit kicked out of them, and we will likely be seeing a lot more of it." At first, I found this comment funny, and made as if to laugh along with the joke. Soon, however, I realized that my counterpart was serious, that he had a problem seeing a fictional scene depicting a fictional young woman locked in choreographed combat with a fictional villain. I do not condone violence toward children; I have (and will in the future) personally intervened in situations in which I witnessed children at risk of physical harm so as to protect them (even if only briefly). (Side note: if you are smoking while children are in your car or in your home, or smoking anywhere near children, you are causing harm to those children, and you are an asshole.)
  Then, last night, I watched Leon the Professional, a film directed by Luc Besson, starring Jean Reno and Natalie Portman, in which in one scene the protagonist, a pubescent girl, holds a gun to her head and narrowly avoids blowing out her brains. After watching that scene, I realized that this scene was the origin of all the depictions in recent Hollywood blockbusters of young women holding guns to their heads and trying to blow out their brains. In nearly every movie since Leon the Professional came out, over the past couple of decades, at least one young actress has held a gun to her head and threatened to cap herself if not given the love or the attention or the breakfast cereal she felt she deserved. It has, as we all know, become a hallmark of modern cinema to depict young women playing Hanoi roulette, one chamber empty and the other five full, the metal flashing as they spun their pistols shut and thrust the business end dramatically to their temples.
  After having re-watched Leon, I now agree: we cannot allow the continued portrayal of young women who are willing to put their lives on the line for something in which they believe, or who have the courage to go up against great and tremendous odds in order to protect their friends or to avenge the murder of a loved one (for this might encourage our women-folk to take action, to challenge the strictures of our paternalistic society and win for themselves an equal station in the workplace and in the home). Also, we cannot trust that movie-makers or movie-goers will be able to differentiate between fact and fiction.
  For to allow one movie to show a young woman taking action in the face of adversity, to depict one girl demanding the swift and merciful execution of justice, is to invite chaos into our homes, into our hearts, and into our minds. We have already stamped out poverty on a global scale; we have already eradicated disease across the seven continents; we have already ensured that each and every human being has the means to lead a peaceful and hunger-free life devoid of suffering and deprivation; now, all we need to do, is to make sure no fake children are hurt in the movies we watch. The general public is sheep-like and utterly devoid of any inherent ability to think or to judge on its own, and must therefore not be exposed to any such violent portrayals lest it succumb immediately to the temptation to act out what was just shown on screen. Join us in our fight against this terrible scourge, and let us together ban these horrendous portrayals of strong young women putting it all on the line for their beliefs. Sign the petition at your local censor's bureau, and remember: we are watching you.

(postscriptum: Movies are make-believe, and worrying about their potential impact on future society is counter-productive and a waste of time. Keep expression, and the mind, open and free.)