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Why I don't care:
Cable channels don't carry the broadcast...

It's fun to hate:
People who tolerate torture.

When Shadowtwin reigns supreme:
Anyone who tortures anyone, for any reason, will be subject to death. It is a harsh stance, but Someone has to make it.

Music lost to history:
Alice Cooper:
Roses on White Lace

Alice Cooper is basically what Marilyn Manson has become. He sang about really taboo subjects at a time when taboo actually was taboo. This particular tune is one that I began listening to after being dumped by the girl that I was supposed to marry back in the early nineties. It is actually one of three songs that play back to back on most albums. Those three songs are, if memory serves, "chop, chop, chop", "Gail" and "Roses on White Lace". I never really appreciated the other two quite as much as this one, but then I have never hacked anyone to death, so check back later...

This song stands alone as being pretty cool just because it states the anger that I was having at the time (back in the '90s). At the same time, it illustrates that Marilyn Manson is following the course of another very successful rocker. While Cooper's songs were not earth-shaking, they were provocative. That single fact is what has led to Manson's success. I have never heard or read Marilyn Manson say that Alice Cooper was an actual influence on his music, but here is an example of it from twenty years ago.

French Toast-
A cute little game that I spent about a minute playing earlier today. It could do without the racial slurs, but it was free, and fun for the minute of playability.

So the day of mourning for former president Reagan is upon us. I am trying to mourn, yet my mourning capacity is being overwhelmed by other, more important, things. For instance, our country (the U.S.) is currently engaged in a so-called war that less than half of our people are behind and judging by the support by other countries I would think that the "vast majority" of other countries are opposed to it as well.

Could there be any connection between the untimely death of former president Reagan, and the timely use of the death to show that our country can display National sympathy? Heck no, I mean that would be like using national power to try to shift the world view of our country, right? That would be dirty, under-handed and exactly what I think the current administration is trying to do.

Had it been George Bush Sr. that died there would have been a lot of sympathy for 'dubya' but there wouldn't have been anything beyond the sympathy one would extend to anyone who had lost a family member. Had it been the death of say Clinton, that would have been quickly swept under the carpet. The fact that it was Reagan has somehow made it into world news, to the point that it is in top stories on international yahoo sites.

Why?

When it comes to the question of 'why', there are precious few undisputable facts. Reagan was a president of the U.S.A., that is an undisputable fact. Everything that happened while he was in office is certainly disputable, and there are various liberal sites that try to argue that to this day. Reagan is often attributed with the fall of communism and the Berlin Wall, whether he had anything to do with either result is not a fact so much as it is a faith.

The Socioeconomic climate under Reagan was far different than any of his predecessors. The U.S. had a booming economy (which Reagan can not be given credit for, as the economy usually runs a few years behind the legislature), Russia was fast running out of both money and support for communism, computer technology was approaching the absolute bubble that burst early in the new millenium, the time was simply right.

Now I am going to go into complete and total speculation. Would Communist Russia have ended without Reagan ever having served in the oval office? Yes. Would the Berlin Wall have ever fallen had he not been in office? Yes. It is no coincidence that the technology boom (which did start in the eighties) made people all over the world see that they, too, could have things...Be the lord of their own homes and the such. While I am sure that the U.S.S.R. never gave them that information, I am equally as sure that photos and stories got back to them.

Reagan was a president, also he was a recent president. I think that this quote, gleaned from the internet, is pretty accurate:

Many presidential scholars say presidents need to be out of office at least 30 years for historians to make an honest assessment of how their achievements hold up. Some glittering records tarnish, while other stained presidencies acquire luster.

Tomorrow will bring even less interesting reading.