metapunk

Just this: A story from the Onion about the religious punishment of stoning in Iran. Told from the point of view of a man throwing the stones, the back-handed ha-ha-only-serious cynicism of a standard Onion story gives way to something eerily touching. It’s the apotheosis of gritty satire—reminding us of how every one of us dies a little when barbarism and tyranny pretend to be religion.

A lot of people on the glorious interwebz have raised issue with the lack of subtlety in James Cameron’s recent film Avatar. It’s a fairly derivative plot, featuring a conflict between a heavily stereo-typed military-industrial complex and a fairly contrived native society (which incidentally, is also the central conflict in Martian Cycles, but hopefully with more depth).  In any case, people have brought up the issue of White Guilt and subtle racism. Now, I’m not disagreeing with these articles, exactly. I just think they’re kind of missing the point. (continue reading…)