manunderstress.com

Last night I hopped on the ol’ mountain bike and pedaled it through the not so mountainous neighborhoods of Atlanta, from Peoplestown to Centennial Park, for the big freebie concert of the summer, Big Star and the Flaming Lips (and others earlier I missed) all brought to you by Southern Comfort (“No moshing, crowd surfing, or stage diving of any kind.”) I’ll tell you, it made me feel quite urban taking the bike through crack ghetto, past Turner Field and the glorious Olympic rings, across I-20, through the Disney-Coke-Underground retail mess, and down 5 scrappy nothing-to-see-here city blocks, to my destination. It was good to see Big Star, who I’d never seen, though it was late afternoon and there was not too much of a party in the air yet, and it didn’t seem most of the “kids” really gave a poo. Perhaps too young for Chilton and co. But they sounded pretty darn good, in lazy afternoon Big Star fashion.

After dark, The Lips emerged, never shying from the challenge of taking the party up a notch, complete with teams of opposing Santas and Aliens, and Coyne rolling about in a giant transparent bubble ball, much like this:

Sigh if you must, but the kids of today love Giant Bubbles, Santas and Aliens. Who are you to deny them? Many more bodies had materialized at this point, and I have to say, compared to Music Midtown type festivals this event was a dream. Crowds are one thing, hordes of puking teenagers another, and fortunately this was a pretty mellow and behaved bunch, except for the occasional stumbling dude, or passed out chick. The Lips began their goofy psychedelic bombast with bursts of confetti, streamers and giant blue balloons. Note to self: hire Wayne Coyne to entertain at my future child’s birthday parties. Other note to self: purchase a confetti gun thingy ASAP. This device alone is seemingly capable of creating massive parties on demand.

A nice night overall. Hope for a cooler downtown Atlanta? I wouldn’t hold my breath.

It’s Friday, have some Bollywood. And come see Magnapop tonight, fresh off our world tour of Belgium and Holland.

Why do I doubt all of these “facts?” Well, don’t miss the St. Patrick’s Parade, you Georgia-Irish hillbillies…

• Almost 40% of Georgians claim Irish heritage.
• More than 1,000,000 Atlanta residents are of Irish descent.
• Atlanta ranks as the 7th largest “Irish City” in North America.

Yesterday some little kids were walking by the house as I was getting the mail and a pudgy little girl asked if I wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies.

“Sure,” I said, thinking that a. cookies rule b. give back to the community and whatever.

She gave me the order form and asked how many I wanted. As I filled out the address, I told her I’d take 2 boxes. She fixed her gaze down the street, mulling something over, and then turned to me and said, “that’d be about twenty dollars.”

I turned and looked at her in disbelief. Surely she didn’t think I was ordering two trucks of cookies.

“No, two boxes. That’s all. According to your sheet here they are $3.50 per box. So that’s seven dollars.”

She looked away again, down the street, little gears almost visibly turning in her head.

“Ok, that’ll be about ten dollars,” she shot back.

I looked at her again, bewildered. It was possible that she was retarded. Or just really bad at math. I couldn’t tell how old she was. 9? A possible GS racket hadn’t crossed my mind yet. I mean, the Girl Scouts? Then again…she wasn’t in uniform.

“I don’t think so,” I said, pointing again to the sheet. “Everyone else paid $3.50 per box, so that’s what I’m going to give you. Ok?”

She stood there in silence, still looking down the street, searching for something to say.

I handed her the money.

“When will they get here?”

“February 22nd,” she said, walking down the stairs and already focused on the next house.

I hope she was in fact a Girl Scout.

Intolerance simply cannot be tolerated. And if you think that’s a contradiction, look closer at the logic. The premise of democracy is necessarily that of radically free speech, that all voices must be tolerated, and while that includes the voices of intolerance (pick your hate group of choice), it doesn’t include any action that would threaten the premise. And it’s pretty hard to argue with the premise of Democracy if you are one that enjoys free speech and especially if you are not (one would think.) Once the proponents of intolerance begin any attempt at censoring the tolerant ones, you have that initial premise of democracy threatened, and that group has forfeited their right to protection under democracy. Therefore the radical religious fascists that are burning embassies over some cartoons that dare insult Islam, should be squashed like the little hate bugs they are. Simple as that.

While it’s silly to think that a cartoon could cause so much distress worldwide, it is important to notice as Reason points out, that compared to previous radical Muslim witch-hunts this one isn’t having the same effect, with fewer politically correct apologists surfacing in the western world.

Anybody who can recall the atmosphere in 1989—when religious rage seemed unstoppable and there was always some crank or contrarian around to point out that Rushdie really brought the trouble on himself—will notice the difference. European opinion polls and the mood of the media today indicate a different attitude, more confident and determined, more ready to admit the obvious point that civilized people don’t go to the gun over an insulting picture.

The problem I have with this is that it’s not simply that today’s collective attitude has evolved towards embracing freedom more than it has evolved towards taking a firm stance against religious fascism, particularly that of the Islamist persuasion. Simply put, I think that the world has had it with these folks. Except the US, who in a bizarre move has sided with the muslims, citing that the cartoons are offensive, blah blah. Even the “liberal” media won’t reprint the cartoons, in an act of pathetic self-censorship. Free speech? Well, only if it doesn’t offend a fascist…

I am not a fan of organized religions. In my opinion, they are rarely more than ideological cartels, often in direct defiance of state authority, liberty and democracy. Not that opposing state authority is necessarily bad, but when one cites a “higher authority” than the state, what in god’s name (no pun) will ever limit that imagined authority? So I’m not a fan of where the philosophy of religion meets it’s practice in the everyday world, where the rubber meets the road. Religion becomes and excuse to exacerbate the violent territorialism that is the cause of most of the worlds conflicts. Of course, it could be said that anything exacerbates cultural difference, when two opposing groups are looking for differences to begin with, and “territorial” conflicts are every bit social and ethnic conflicts as well. But religion, or rather, the misuse of religion, is always right up front, offering any radical group carte blanc justification for whatever barbaric violence they commit.

The cartoon controversy also illustrates the very serious problem of organized religion being able to reign in it’s extremist variants. For example, it’s too bad for Islam that there are so many radical sects making it look so bad these days. And it’s too bad they can’t take care of it, because it’s only going to continue to sully the reputation of their religion until the patience of every peaceful person on the planet is exhausted. Whether they are responsible of taking care of it or not isn’t the question really, because if they don’t who the hell will?

While you are waiting for Nacho Libre to come out, you may want to check out some of the art goings on at the annual ATLart[06]. Why they do this during the coldest parts of winter I don’t know (not that it has been cold…). Festivities officially begin today and run till Feb 12. Looks like the bulk of the openings (that equals free booze and food to you art opening neophytes) will happen Feb 3, 4 and 5. Why the ATLart website continues to suck, I’ll never figure out. Folks: how about a big calendar on the home page with a date by date breakdown of the openings with all pertinent information? Ah, but then it wouldn’t be art, would it…

Chelsea Rathburn will be reading/signing/selling her new book of poems, The Shifting Line, this Saturday from 7-10pm at the Local Businessman Gallery, 263 Peters Street SW. Herb Harris from the Selmanaires will also be playing music of some sort.