Censorship
What is the point of censoring material? Is it to keep us safe from something we all know is there? Is it to prevent things from being shared? Or is it to save the children?
Even though these seem like different questions they’re really all asking the same thing: Who decides who should view what in this world?
Censorship is something I agree with, but not to the extent we live it today. I don’t believe the radio should censor bad words in song lyrics, that there should be age requirements for movies or certain plays, and I don’t believe the government (authority figures) should decide what to censor and from whom.
Censorship is something that should be decided upon by individual families. Nothing should really be censored out there, but individual families should have the choice of deciding what their children can watch, listen to, etc. For example, a movie should have a recommended age of appropriateness, but if a certain family thinks their child is mature enough to view a certain movie, he should be perfectly allowed to walk in freely, and not denied access because of his age (like it happens in many cinemas).
Radio networks should just announce that they may sometimes transmit music with a “Parental Advisory” label on it, and then this way, people who would rather not listen to it could just change the station, whilst others who do, could listen to it without restrictions.
I also believe it’s absolute crap is that people actually believe a certain age makes you completely mature. If we are not allowed to view a certain movie because we’re 17 and 364 days old, why can we suddenly be allowed to watch it the next day? It’s not like all of the sudden a magic ray of light fell on top of us that night and made us Mr. Mature. This is why I think ratings should only be recommendations (which they are in some countries) rather that “age of acceptance”.
Figures of authority have no right to decide what to censor. I’ve read that in some parts of the world, certain musicians are banned because of the ideals they express in their music; also certain movies, authors, etc. are banned! This is just plain wrong, they’re taking away our whole right of expression and freedom of speech! Why just the other day in school my short film wasn’t shown (even though they said they would) because it had “bad” language in it!
Bad language is a myth, who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? (It may be their use is inappropriate at times but they shouldn’t be censored because of it). It’s not like there are certain words that should never be uttered, everyone knows them, and everyone speaks them or at least has once in their lives. It is complete stupidity to think that by listening to words like Fuck, Cunt and Bitch (which you just read) will change your life forever, and think that little kids will repeat them just because they hear them. They repeat them because adults tell them not to!
Forced censoring is unnecessary and should be replaced by the decision to censor
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Flashback (short story)
The Flashback
7:28 p.m.
What the hell’s going on? Where am I? Why can’t I remember anything?
As I look around, I realize I’m under a desk in a sort of office. There’s a chair turned over in front of me, lots of papers scattered around it, everything’s in disorder. Upon further inspection I realize I’m drenched in sweat, a gun in my hand.
BANG!
A shot goes off close by, though not in this room, that I can tell.
What the hell’s happening?!
The face of a man: “Look, we ain’t done nothin’ wrong, let us go!”
Another face: “He’s getting away sir!”
Blurry images of cars and people shouting flash by in my mind’s eye.
I’m outside a building. A bunch of police cars pull up behind me with their sirens on, I go into the building with the gun in my hand.
What the-? Am I being followed by the cops? I can’t picture myself doing something wrong enough to get the police involved. But then what? No time to think now, I’m being shot at! I get up and stumble towards the door, as I do so a second shot is fired in the next room, followed by a blood chilling scream. After less that a second, I hear a thump as a body falls to the floor limply.
6:42 p.m.
“Oh come on ‘Dirty Joe’ I know you did it, so just give it up” I say to this ugly bastard sitting in front of me in the interrogation room.
“Look, we ain’t done nothin’ wrong, let us go!” He replies.
“Your buddy just confessed to it in the other room”
“WHAT?! That son of a B-! I mean, no man, I don’t believe you, we ain’t gone and killed that woman” The jig’s up, he just confessed involuntarily. Oldest trick in the book.
“No, no you didn’t,” I say calmly. “you raped her as well you sick bastard!”
“Screw you”
I turn and leave, my job here is done.
7:13 p.m.
As I get ready to leave, Officer Johnson comes running at me screaming:
“He’s getting away sir!”
“What?”
“Joe, he disarmed the guard and shot him, he’s out of the building!”
“Damn it! Let’s go!” I shout and run with him and the rest of the present officers out of HQ. I get into the car on the passenger’s seat, Johnson drives.
We follow Dirty Joe to a building.
7:26 p.m.
We’re here, I don’t know why he decided to get into this building. I get out of the car and the rest of the officers pull up behind us. I take the lead and run into the building, after Joe.
I follow him up to the third floor where I lose him. I go into the first office I see, nothing, I turn to leave and Joe is at the entrance, I shoot at him as I get behind a desk and knock a chair over on the way, I miss. He does the same and misses, however I fall hard on my head and fall unconscious.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Beggining of a First-Person Story:
Night at the Cemetery
Ghosts? Haha! I used to laugh at the sheer prospect of them. I mean who the hell could believe in such things, the spirits of the dead coming back because of some unfulfilled desire? Bullshit!
This is what I thought before Friday night. That night changed my life for ever.
“Come on man, don’t be such a pussy!” I urged Zack.
“Look man, I have no problem with you guys going off and getting yourselves into all kinds of shit, just don’t drag me into it!” Zack answered in a firm voice.
“Dude, there are no such things as Evil Spirits…oooh!” I replied mockingly.
“Yeah Z, come on dude, we’ll all have a laugh” Urged Rob.
And so continued this conversation until we convinced Zack to come along with us to the graveyard by Brown Avenue. It was supposed to be an unforgettable night, full of drinking and teenage stupidity with a couple ghost stories thrown in. The best Halloween night ever, spending the night in an old spooky graveyard with nothing but our sleeping bags, a couple flashlights and of course, underage drinking.
We were a group of four. Zack, Rob, Jane and me, Mark Zimmerman. All of us were 17 at the time, except for Rob who turned 18 a couple days before Halloween. It had been an arduous job to get Zack to come along, but after mentioning that Jane was coming it wasn’t so hard, he had a huge crush on her and wherever she went he was soon to follow.
Our plan was ready a couple days before Halloween and now all we had to do was wait. I was planning on scaring the shit out of Zack as he was the only one who truly believed all this ghost stuff and was scared shitless of going to the graveyard in the day let alone spend a night in one. During these couple boring days of waiting around for Halloween to come I elaborated a plan with Rob and Jane to fuck with our pal.
“Alright, so Jane, you distract him and me and Rob will go off with the excuse of having to pee. During this time you’ll make him forget we’re gone and we’ll set it up.” I explained the plan to Jane. The basics of it was to have enough time to place our small speakers around our “camping site” without innocent Zack getting suspicious. You see, the graveyard is surrounded by woods, making it all the more cliché type eerie, which was perfect for spooking Zack. Me and Rob would go take a piss and place a couple of portable speakers in the woods, close to our sleeping place. We had just finished recording a vast number of spooky yet subtle sounds. A variety of shuffling leaves, branches braking under footsteps, a couple ghostly moans and one or two distant screams of pain. This was sure to scare the shit out of Zack. We would all play along and get the living fuck scared out of him. This was gonna be great!
“Ok, but how am I supposed to keep him interested for so long?” asked Jane.
“I don’t know Jane, come on, you have the easiest job of all!” I said.
“Oh, just use your boob charm, that’s bound to entertain him for a while” added Rob with a laugh, always with his retarded comments.
“Oh fuck you…” was her answer.
“Come on baby, you know it works, haha!” came Rob’s reply.
***
Finally, Halloween came. Everything was ready. We were in Rob’s car, on our way to the cemetery.
“Hey, have you guys seen Eagle Eye yet? ‘Cause you know, there’s a show playing at the mall in like 30 minutes and I’m feeling generous, we could go. I’ll pay…” Zack said, trying to worm his way out of the night.
“Yeah, we’ve all seen it man, as a matter of fact, we saw it with you dude, you’re not squirming your way out of this Zack!” said Rob. Zack’s face twisted in a slight worry.
“Dude, you’re putting too much importance on the graveyard man! Just chill, imagine we’re camping on a beautiful hill, full of bunnies and they’re all fluffy and stuff!” I said.
“That’s so gay bro.” Said Rob.
“Oh shut the fuck up man, you want him to leave?” I said.
“Sorry…Bunnies Zack! Isn’t that just awesome!” said Rob with mocking enthusiasm. Zack just sighed and looked out the window.
“Come on Zack, it’ll be fun” encouraged Jane.
“Yeah you’re probably right” he said, easily convinced by her.
***
12:06 p.m. The fire is set, we’re all in our sleeping bags, telling ghost stories, me and Rob are getting ready to set everything up, when I say “I gotta go pee” everything will start.
“…and now, every Halloween night you can hear her moaning in the woods for the lost life of her children, some say you can even hear their cries of pain as they were brutally murdered by the serial killers as well.” Rob finished up his story.
Already I could see lines of worry in Zack’s face as he regretted ever coming. This was the perfect moment to strike.
“I gotta go pee” I said.
Ghosts? Haha! I used to laugh at the sheer prospect of them. I mean who the hell could believe in such things, the spirits of the dead coming back because of some unfulfilled desire? Bullshit!
This is what I thought before Friday night. That night changed my life for ever.
“Come on man, don’t be such a pussy!” I urged Zack.
“Look man, I have no problem with you guys going off and getting yourselves into all kinds of shit, just don’t drag me into it!” Zack answered in a firm voice.
“Dude, there are no such things as Evil Spirits…oooh!” I replied mockingly.
“Yeah Z, come on dude, we’ll all have a laugh” Urged Rob.
And so continued this conversation until we convinced Zack to come along with us to the graveyard by Brown Avenue. It was supposed to be an unforgettable night, full of drinking and teenage stupidity with a couple ghost stories thrown in. The best Halloween night ever, spending the night in an old spooky graveyard with nothing but our sleeping bags, a couple flashlights and of course, underage drinking.
We were a group of four. Zack, Rob, Jane and me, Mark Zimmerman. All of us were 17 at the time, except for Rob who turned 18 a couple days before Halloween. It had been an arduous job to get Zack to come along, but after mentioning that Jane was coming it wasn’t so hard, he had a huge crush on her and wherever she went he was soon to follow.
Our plan was ready a couple days before Halloween and now all we had to do was wait. I was planning on scaring the shit out of Zack as he was the only one who truly believed all this ghost stuff and was scared shitless of going to the graveyard in the day let alone spend a night in one. During these couple boring days of waiting around for Halloween to come I elaborated a plan with Rob and Jane to fuck with our pal.
“Alright, so Jane, you distract him and me and Rob will go off with the excuse of having to pee. During this time you’ll make him forget we’re gone and we’ll set it up.” I explained the plan to Jane. The basics of it was to have enough time to place our small speakers around our “camping site” without innocent Zack getting suspicious. You see, the graveyard is surrounded by woods, making it all the more cliché type eerie, which was perfect for spooking Zack. Me and Rob would go take a piss and place a couple of portable speakers in the woods, close to our sleeping place. We had just finished recording a vast number of spooky yet subtle sounds. A variety of shuffling leaves, branches braking under footsteps, a couple ghostly moans and one or two distant screams of pain. This was sure to scare the shit out of Zack. We would all play along and get the living fuck scared out of him. This was gonna be great!
“Ok, but how am I supposed to keep him interested for so long?” asked Jane.
“I don’t know Jane, come on, you have the easiest job of all!” I said.
“Oh, just use your boob charm, that’s bound to entertain him for a while” added Rob with a laugh, always with his retarded comments.
“Oh fuck you…” was her answer.
“Come on baby, you know it works, haha!” came Rob’s reply.
***
Finally, Halloween came. Everything was ready. We were in Rob’s car, on our way to the cemetery.
“Hey, have you guys seen Eagle Eye yet? ‘Cause you know, there’s a show playing at the mall in like 30 minutes and I’m feeling generous, we could go. I’ll pay…” Zack said, trying to worm his way out of the night.
“Yeah, we’ve all seen it man, as a matter of fact, we saw it with you dude, you’re not squirming your way out of this Zack!” said Rob. Zack’s face twisted in a slight worry.
“Dude, you’re putting too much importance on the graveyard man! Just chill, imagine we’re camping on a beautiful hill, full of bunnies and they’re all fluffy and stuff!” I said.
“That’s so gay bro.” Said Rob.
“Oh shut the fuck up man, you want him to leave?” I said.
“Sorry…Bunnies Zack! Isn’t that just awesome!” said Rob with mocking enthusiasm. Zack just sighed and looked out the window.
“Come on Zack, it’ll be fun” encouraged Jane.
“Yeah you’re probably right” he said, easily convinced by her.
***
12:06 p.m. The fire is set, we’re all in our sleeping bags, telling ghost stories, me and Rob are getting ready to set everything up, when I say “I gotta go pee” everything will start.
“…and now, every Halloween night you can hear her moaning in the woods for the lost life of her children, some say you can even hear their cries of pain as they were brutally murdered by the serial killers as well.” Rob finished up his story.
Already I could see lines of worry in Zack’s face as he regretted ever coming. This was the perfect moment to strike.
“I gotta go pee” I said.
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