...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#42)

Well, my the Thanksgiving break was short-lived. No sooner had I finished off about 45 pounds of Thanksgiving turkey when I found myself smack-dab in the middle of mid-term season. For many of us, this means logging in hundreds of hours in the super-quiet room in the Library or in Kelley’s good old 24-hour computer lab, for others, it means memorizing stuff to the point that you forget where you are, who you are, and how the hell you got yourself into this nonsense in the first place. For still others, such as myself, the massive amount of work piled in front of us means fretting about it constantly, while simultaneously ignoring it completely. Yes, procrastination is upon us. This made for an incredibly unproductive weekend for me, with the days broken up by random 3-hour naps in the middle of the afternoon, constant web-surfing through emails and blogs and Facebook, not to mention endless searches for obscure and useless information that has nothing to do with anything. It got so bad at one point that I resorted to cleaning the house, at which point I dug out an old juicer that Mom and Dad had bought during a mid-eighties health craze, and started making juice out of all the fruit in the refrigerator. Needless to say, I am pretty much screwed, and yet, instead of doing actual work, here I am writing a damn rant.

Liberal leadership contender Michael Ignatieff got into a bit of hot water last week when he stated that Israel had committed war crimes during the Hezbollah-Israeli war this past July. There was an uproar following these comment, prompting a former co-chair of his campaign and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s wife to withdraw support. Prime Minister Stephen Harper weighed in on the debate as well, accusing all the Liberal leadership candidates as being ‘anti-Israeli’ and shaming them for not standing up for the Jewish community (which is really smart, seeing as Bob Rae’s wife and kids are Jewish). Jewish groups from across the country also expressed outrage at Ignatieff’s comments. Why? First of all, we’re talking about Israel here, a nation-state, not a religion. It is an undisputable fact that during the war Israel used cluster bombs and destroyed electrical, water, and sewage plants, as well as Beirut International Airport, thus making civilian evacuation extremely difficult. Under the Geneva Conventions, these could all be considered war crimes.
Now I wouldn’t even try to suggest that Hezbollah is not responsible for war crimes, indeed as a terrorist organization, they are engaged almost exclusively in illegal activity, but this in no way exonerates Israel. The Israeli attack was responsible for the deaths of many Lebanese civilians and for the destruction of non-military infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. I don’t have a problem with people trying to dispute these facts, they certainly have that right, but I definitely have a problem with the suggestion that anyone who questions Israel is somehow anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic. It pisses me off when the popular media implies that suggesting any wrong-doing on the part of Israel is somehow taboo or racist. This is endemic of the past decade, and especially in the period since September 11th, in which our society has begun to accept the destruction of non-military infrastructure and civilian lives in foreign wars simply if we feel that the attacker has “a good reason.” That’s bullshit. The Geneva Convention was put in place for a reason; so that the rules of war would apply to everyone. A war crime is a war crime no matter who you’re fighting, what colour your skin is, or what religion you are. They are war crimes because they recklessly and needlessly endanger the lives of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and in this regard there are no ‘if,’ ‘ands,’ or ‘buts’ about it. We need to start rationally considering the laws of war, rather than using real or apprehended threats as justification for writing blank cheques to political leaders so they can wage war and wreak destruction without recourse or criticism.

On an unrelated note, if Weapons of Mass Destruction were reason enough to invade Iraq, then why the hell isn’t the US headed to North Korea? I mean, you wouldn’t even search through caves and shit, they march their WMDs right down Main Street, Pyongyang. Just a thought.

So, I got stuck in a car that had Magic 93 on the radio during the Top 9 @ 9 last week, and I am getting pretty worried about music these days. I figured I’d try to make the best out of a bad situation and give the countdown a chance, seeing as I hadn’t heard in about 5 years. So, song number three was announced, and this random song comes on about sleep and psychosis and cockroaches laying dreams in some guys brain. Of all the crap that’s out there, THIS is number 3?!? I have no idea what the name of the song is and who sings it, but holy crap it was terrible. And I mean I’ve heard some pretty bad songs on Magic over the years; Blue, Tub-thumping, Don’t Cha, Sexy Back, but for the love of everything sacred, is the whole industry going to shit?

I thought we had done pretty well making it through the bubblegum pop nonsense of the late 90s and the brief Latin craze, all but this emo-screamo-faux-urban-grunge -think-you’re-profound-because-you-talk-about-suicide bullshit is ridiculous. Who the hell are these people? And I don’t know why these bands think that if they swear and wear eye shadow and get tattoos that they’re all suddenly become legit musicians. More baffling is why the hell all the 13-year-old prostitots accept their allusions of grandeur as “good music”. Some band named ‘Dead Celebrity Status’ was recently quoted as saying: “Music is blood, blood is oxygen, breathe it in.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? Sure, we could consider music essential and metaphorically refer to it as either oxygen or blood, but using both in hopes of sounding hardcore, also renders this analogy flawed, redundant AND incredibly stupid. Of course some 13-year-old boy going through some puberty rebellion is going to be like “Shit yeah! They talk about blood, they’re awesome!” No, they’re not. They’re just dumb asses.

And who the hell are these ‘Panic! At the Disco’ morons? I’ll tell you who they are, they’re a bunch of damn kids who were born between 1985 and 1987 and have therefore never been to a damn disco and wouldn’t even know what a roller rink is for frig’s sake. These geniuses have managed to write a few clever little ditties however, like: ‘Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off’ and ‘The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage.’ Brilliant. A thousand monkeys typing on type-writers for 4 billion years couldn’t come up with such bullshit. Their lyrics are equally ridiculous: ‘“What a beautiful wedding!” says a bridesmaid to a waiter. “And yes, but what a shame, the poor groom's bride is a whore.”’ Awesome. Good Charlotte is still impressive with their skillfully written lyrics: “Motivate me, I wanna get myself out of this bed.” Lofty goals boys, lofty goals. And Mario continues to swoon the ladies with his love ballads: “C'mon and braid my hair, back in my hood” and “Where did you come from, I wanna thank your Moms for bringin' you into this life, and makin’ you my type.” Wow. What depth of character. Idiots. Oh, for all you skank-a-trons out there, the Pussycat Dolls are looking for a new lead singer. Apparently lead vocalist Nicole Elikolani Prescovia Scherzinger wants to go solo. Wonderful. I cannot wait.

And finally, don’t drink the water or make out with randoms at Mount A or St.FX. The Norwalk virus has rendered hundreds of students at these campuses as useless as, well, they’ve always been kind of useless. It kind of makes up for all the snobbish uppity-bitch comments about UPEI that I’ve heard from Mt.A and St.FX jerks over the past few years, like “At least we go to a real school.” Yeah well, at least we know how to wash our hands and shower now and then. I think it was all summed up fairly well when one of my friends at Mt.A said last week: “It’s really bad because everyone’s touching everyone.” Indeed. ‘Welcome to Mount A: Everyone’s touching everyone.’ Wonderful.

Have a good one!